很久以前，有位长者。一个智慧圆满的老师。他的学生遍满十方。门下有三批学生。
第一批学生，非常崇拜老师。对老师的话坚信不移。老师说一，学生连二都不想。
听到重伤老师的话，用他感性的言语回复。别人眼中的好弟子。但他们有个烦恼。
当境界生起，老师的话难于运用。心境起伏不定，不知如何安心。
第二批学生，也非常崇拜老师。对老师的话也坚信不移。但信心建立在行。从老师
那学到人生的价值，得身口意的净化。服务社会，利益大众。人们眼中的大好人，
标准模范。
第三批学生，因崇拜老师，报答老师的教诲。立志也要做老师，像老师一样，教化
学生。把老师的话，传遍世界，利益更多的人。
哪一为才是老师的好学生呢？我现在是哪一批？向往的又是哪一批？哪你呢？
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Healing our Minds :Buddhism and Stress
Talk by ven Heng Sure at Tai Pei Buddhist Centre 大悲佛教中心 organised by Buddhist Union :)
As the name suggested, the talk is on stress but shifu benefited us with even more! Ven Heng Sure was famous for a monk that did the 3 step 1 bow for 3yrs along the coast of California to City of Ten Thousand Buddhas in Ukiah.
No notes taken so here is what I still remembered.
He shared with us that during his years of 3-step 1-bow, the journey is never smooth. There are supporters that cheers them along the way and of course they do face some serious resistance. He shared that there a people that would just pour beers over them to mock them. There was once where there is a violent man that even calls them devil. But in some twist of fate, shifu's endeavour melts the heart of this violent man and his life gets better.
Ven Heng Sure then share briefly on how his respected teacher came to America to spread buddhism totally with the westerners in mind! His teacher accepted 5 westerns under him and ven Heng Sure is one of them.
Ven Heng Sure then said that a mother ran to him crying telling him to "rescue" her child who has been evangelize away. Ven Heng Sure then advise us that to attract youths into Buddhism, we should not assume they like to wear the black robe and do chanting Amituofo....Amituofo.... Instead, we should practise the Dharma in our life and benefit from it. Leading by examples and showing them how Dharma can be so relevant yet fun to practise, the effort is more fruitful.
The playful shifu even introduce us to his 2 furry community representative!! Using the animal puppet to show that all animals be it big or small shows fear and stress. Shifu also goes into how to use the 4 noble truth to understand stress and how to better manage it.
Below is the link to get Shifu's english folk songs for free! But please be honest to post an act of kindness!! DOn't cheat.
http://www.dharmaradio.org/paramita/index.htm
Read the intro and click on Acts of Kindness and follow the instructions :)
As the name suggested, the talk is on stress but shifu benefited us with even more! Ven Heng Sure was famous for a monk that did the 3 step 1 bow for 3yrs along the coast of California to City of Ten Thousand Buddhas in Ukiah.
No notes taken so here is what I still remembered.
He shared with us that during his years of 3-step 1-bow, the journey is never smooth. There are supporters that cheers them along the way and of course they do face some serious resistance. He shared that there a people that would just pour beers over them to mock them. There was once where there is a violent man that even calls them devil. But in some twist of fate, shifu's endeavour melts the heart of this violent man and his life gets better.
Ven Heng Sure then share briefly on how his respected teacher came to America to spread buddhism totally with the westerners in mind! His teacher accepted 5 westerns under him and ven Heng Sure is one of them.
Ven Heng Sure then said that a mother ran to him crying telling him to "rescue" her child who has been evangelize away. Ven Heng Sure then advise us that to attract youths into Buddhism, we should not assume they like to wear the black robe and do chanting Amituofo....Amituofo.... Instead, we should practise the Dharma in our life and benefit from it. Leading by examples and showing them how Dharma can be so relevant yet fun to practise, the effort is more fruitful.
The playful shifu even introduce us to his 2 furry community representative!! Using the animal puppet to show that all animals be it big or small shows fear and stress. Shifu also goes into how to use the 4 noble truth to understand stress and how to better manage it.
Below is the link to get Shifu's english folk songs for free! But please be honest to post an act of kindness!! DOn't cheat.
http://www.dharmaradio.org/paramita/index.htm
Read the intro and click on Acts of Kindness and follow the instructions :)
Saturday, November 6, 2010
Buddhist Conference 2554 (IV) - Attaining Spiritual Happiness with Mind Transformation Tools
Discourse was given by Geshe Tezin Zopa, famously remembered as the male lead in the buddhist film :Unmistaken Child. Was told by my friend, the film was well made and its in fact a factual documentary of how he finds back his master that passed on. Hopefully I can write something on that film in future :P
The way he behaves and talks really changed my perceptions of tibetan monks, which I thought to be more stern and boring. He was so alive, smart, charismatic, energetic, practical, scientific and the list goes on and on :P
He says that with great improvement in medical science, there is still new diseases and there are more people suffering from mental problems. He states that happiness is something internal rather than external. Subduing ones bad thoughts are the way to solve the cause of sufferings.
"Love has to be followed by compassion. We think we are giving love to others yet not mindful about actually imposing suffering to the person."
"Problems lies in ourselves, our delusion. Not being mindful of our actions and speech."
"The way to solve relationship issue is to observe one's mind."
"Expression of love should be compassion. Wishing the other only happiness and not suffering."
"Pure letting go of self-interest, self identity"
"To a Buddha, he sees the world as a pure-land. But we see it as Samsara."
"Best way to reduce past negative Karma is to use the body to help others."
break-up session
This section explores more on ways he advised :p
He first explains that Buddhist Tantric is different from Hindu Tantric. The intention, way and the goal is totally different. Buddhist's starts from compassion. Hindu focus on achieving heavenly pleasures while buddhist aims to attain wisdom and final liberations.
The different schools of thoughts in Buddhism are various vehicles that still supports and help each other.
Guidelines to single pointed meditations.
Obstacles
1. Laziness
2. Forgetting the object
3. Laxity & excitement
4. Non-application - losing focus on our object of focus and allowing other mind object to come in.
5. Over-application - Exaggerate the object of focus and adding more details to it.
Antidotes
Faith; Aspiration; Perserverance; Pliancy to cure problem 1.
Recollection to cure problem 2. Keep thinking of the object frequently.
Vigilance to cure problem 3. Observe and guard the mind.
Application to cure problem 4. Always bring the mind back.
Equanimity to cure problem 5.
He then shared his idea of transmission of disease in a rather less scientific yet interesting way. He says that sick is due to ripening of past negative karma. Volunteers and doctors that treats the patient that is down with some infectious disease does not get infected. We need to practise the 6 paramitas diligently.
As according to him during the Q&A, chanting of mantra, we radiate and provides positive conditions for others to evoke their past positive karmas.
Last point which I find it rather important and beneficial to all Buddhist.
"Practise of chanting, burning of joss-sticks with samsaric intentions make us come back to samsara." Meaning if we chant just for personal wealth,health and happiness in a mundane intentions, then we can only achieve mundane bliss. Instead, we should chant and pray with renunciation intention. Praying to leave Samsara. That should be the goal of all buddhist.
Heres another interesting one for people that has issue with their diet : "Eating using mindfulness that there are at least 84 million bacteria in our body. And by preserving a healthy body, we are sustaining their living."
Abstracts from the provided notes which I find good snd important to share.
We are responsible for fulfilling our innate instinct to seek and obtain happiness and not suffering. This applies even to ants. We surrender our 20 odd years of our lives to study in order to get a good job, we get into relationships and have families-this is all to get happiness.
The more we chase after happiness, getting to know more friends and wealth, we are still unhappy. Coz we are still completely controlled by our emotions and this is caused by our inability to control our minds because we don't MEDITATE. We don't habituate our minds with the Buddha's advice to be mindful of our actions that our body, speech and mind commit. Especially that of our mind.
There are more details and specific instructions in the notes but I guess if anyone wants I could lend or zap him a copy :P
Now ends my sharing on the Buddhist Conference!!! May all be well and happy. May we all cultivate a pure mind and intention, and achieving the ultimate bliss and happiness that is real.
The way he behaves and talks really changed my perceptions of tibetan monks, which I thought to be more stern and boring. He was so alive, smart, charismatic, energetic, practical, scientific and the list goes on and on :P
He says that with great improvement in medical science, there is still new diseases and there are more people suffering from mental problems. He states that happiness is something internal rather than external. Subduing ones bad thoughts are the way to solve the cause of sufferings.
"Love has to be followed by compassion. We think we are giving love to others yet not mindful about actually imposing suffering to the person."
"Problems lies in ourselves, our delusion. Not being mindful of our actions and speech."
"The way to solve relationship issue is to observe one's mind."
"Expression of love should be compassion. Wishing the other only happiness and not suffering."
"Pure letting go of self-interest, self identity"
"To a Buddha, he sees the world as a pure-land. But we see it as Samsara."
"Best way to reduce past negative Karma is to use the body to help others."
break-up session
This section explores more on ways he advised :p
He first explains that Buddhist Tantric is different from Hindu Tantric. The intention, way and the goal is totally different. Buddhist's starts from compassion. Hindu focus on achieving heavenly pleasures while buddhist aims to attain wisdom and final liberations.
The different schools of thoughts in Buddhism are various vehicles that still supports and help each other.
Guidelines to single pointed meditations.
Obstacles
1. Laziness
2. Forgetting the object
3. Laxity & excitement
4. Non-application - losing focus on our object of focus and allowing other mind object to come in.
5. Over-application - Exaggerate the object of focus and adding more details to it.
Antidotes
Faith; Aspiration; Perserverance; Pliancy to cure problem 1.
Recollection to cure problem 2. Keep thinking of the object frequently.
Vigilance to cure problem 3. Observe and guard the mind.
Application to cure problem 4. Always bring the mind back.
Equanimity to cure problem 5.
He then shared his idea of transmission of disease in a rather less scientific yet interesting way. He says that sick is due to ripening of past negative karma. Volunteers and doctors that treats the patient that is down with some infectious disease does not get infected. We need to practise the 6 paramitas diligently.
As according to him during the Q&A, chanting of mantra, we radiate and provides positive conditions for others to evoke their past positive karmas.
Last point which I find it rather important and beneficial to all Buddhist.
"Practise of chanting, burning of joss-sticks with samsaric intentions make us come back to samsara." Meaning if we chant just for personal wealth,health and happiness in a mundane intentions, then we can only achieve mundane bliss. Instead, we should chant and pray with renunciation intention. Praying to leave Samsara. That should be the goal of all buddhist.
Heres another interesting one for people that has issue with their diet : "Eating using mindfulness that there are at least 84 million bacteria in our body. And by preserving a healthy body, we are sustaining their living."
Abstracts from the provided notes which I find good snd important to share.
We are responsible for fulfilling our innate instinct to seek and obtain happiness and not suffering. This applies even to ants. We surrender our 20 odd years of our lives to study in order to get a good job, we get into relationships and have families-this is all to get happiness.
The more we chase after happiness, getting to know more friends and wealth, we are still unhappy. Coz we are still completely controlled by our emotions and this is caused by our inability to control our minds because we don't MEDITATE. We don't habituate our minds with the Buddha's advice to be mindful of our actions that our body, speech and mind commit. Especially that of our mind.
There are more details and specific instructions in the notes but I guess if anyone wants I could lend or zap him a copy :P
Now ends my sharing on the Buddhist Conference!!! May all be well and happy. May we all cultivate a pure mind and intention, and achieving the ultimate bliss and happiness that is real.
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Buddhist Conference 2554 (III) - Happiness DIY
As what expected from a Venerable, her talk focus more on buddhist practice.
Her discourse is on prayers and chanting; aspiration; repentence; dedication of merits. She stressed alot on the underlying meanings of traditional buddhist ceremony and practices.
She starts generally by commenting that there is nothing wrong with sensual pleasures but not to indulge in it. This makes me recall on some sayings that we do not practice buddhism to become a dead log :)
"The more we possess the more we want to get."
We should all be kind to ourselves and we can easily start our day by looking into the mirror and say, "May I be happy." During our MRT or bus ride, we could recite mantras or the Buddha's name. And when we step into the office, we must try to greet the first person we see with a smile.
"People grows angry from unhappiness and more anger from our anger." It makes perfect sense when everytime after some angry episode and we rationalize what happened, we find ourselves focus on imaginary ideas like ego and in fact the notion of anger itself.
After going through a bad day, some people bring their problems home. So before we leave our office, we should tell ourselves what's past has pass and learn to leave all the problems down before we head home.
When we reach home, we can just seat quietly at a corner, unwinding and replaying what has happen on the day and reflects on what's done wholesomely and what faults we make. Try not to cover-up for the wrongs we make and do repentence on the wrong actions. We do not have to blame ourselves deeply for the wrongs we did but acknowledge that the mistakes we did are due to delusions.
"When our body is dirty we bath. When our clothes are dirty we wash. When our mind is dirty we do repentence."
As on our buddhist practise, we should not be judgemental. And when we are not doing our practice rightfully, we should just take a deep breathe and not to fall into anger.
As from given text ....
Prayers and chanting
"Prayers are ways of guiding our thoughts and energy in a certain direction; they are a technique in helping us transform our mind. By repeatedly thinking of the meaning of what we are saying or reading, we train and familiarise ourselves in a way of regarding and relating to ourselves and others. Thus for a person dedicated to developing of his or her Buddha potential, prayers and the activities of our daily life complement each other."
Aspiration
The world's happiest people are truly concerned with the happiness of others. They understand the sufferings of others and can only be happy if others are too. It is not enough to seek one's own happiness, you have to help others. We could recite this verse as part of our daily practise.
The four immeasurables (Aspiration for Universal Love)
May all sentient beings have happiness and the causes of happiness
May all sentient beings be free of sufferings and the causes of suffering
May all sentient beings never be separated from sorrowless bliss
May all sentient beings be in equanimity, free of bias, attachment and anger
Repentence
The practice of Buddhist repentence is not so much of asking for divine forgiveness. It is the clear recognition of our unskilful actions done intentionally or un-mindfully through our body, speech and mind.
After recognizing our faults, we make resolutions to be as mindful as we can, so as to never repeat them. In this sense, repentence is about forgiving oneself through expressing regrets and turning over a new leaf, absolving oneself of unhealthy guilt while renewing determination to further avoid evil, do good and purify our mind with greater diligence.
Dedication of merits
When we you do something positive for others, take a moment to spread the joy by dedicating merits to all sentient beings. If you just finished meditation, chanting or prostrating, you can put your hands together reverently and say :
May this merit I have accumulated
benefit all sentient beings.
May all sentient beings be well,
and may they all attain perfect peace.
Own thoughts:
Dedication of merit to other sentient beings will not reduce our merits just like a candle uses its flame to light other candles. The original candle will not reduce its brightness and the room will be brighter due to cumulative efforts of all the lit candles.
My reflection is that rituals and practises are very important and in fact is a part of and a good way to cultivate ourselves spiritually. Saying that not going to the temples and believe that striving using ownselves effort, is actually very hard and far-fetched in certain sense to me. What makes us so sure we can work hard practising buddhism ourselves when we are even lazy to be in a temple.
Having said that, rituals are not all of spiritual life and over-dependence and reliance to rituals can cause attachments and slowing down of our practises. One should have their own judgement call as to whether they should trust the credentials of certain exotic rituals and whether one can mentally accept it. After all, there is no best method to serve the needs of all.
I believe the right ritual to go with is a ritual that does not lead to increment of greed, hatred and delusion.
Stay tuned for the next one by the last speaker I am introducing, Geshe Tenzin Zopa.
Her discourse is on prayers and chanting; aspiration; repentence; dedication of merits. She stressed alot on the underlying meanings of traditional buddhist ceremony and practices.
She starts generally by commenting that there is nothing wrong with sensual pleasures but not to indulge in it. This makes me recall on some sayings that we do not practice buddhism to become a dead log :)
"The more we possess the more we want to get."
We should all be kind to ourselves and we can easily start our day by looking into the mirror and say, "May I be happy." During our MRT or bus ride, we could recite mantras or the Buddha's name. And when we step into the office, we must try to greet the first person we see with a smile.
"People grows angry from unhappiness and more anger from our anger." It makes perfect sense when everytime after some angry episode and we rationalize what happened, we find ourselves focus on imaginary ideas like ego and in fact the notion of anger itself.
After going through a bad day, some people bring their problems home. So before we leave our office, we should tell ourselves what's past has pass and learn to leave all the problems down before we head home.
When we reach home, we can just seat quietly at a corner, unwinding and replaying what has happen on the day and reflects on what's done wholesomely and what faults we make. Try not to cover-up for the wrongs we make and do repentence on the wrong actions. We do not have to blame ourselves deeply for the wrongs we did but acknowledge that the mistakes we did are due to delusions.
"When our body is dirty we bath. When our clothes are dirty we wash. When our mind is dirty we do repentence."
As on our buddhist practise, we should not be judgemental. And when we are not doing our practice rightfully, we should just take a deep breathe and not to fall into anger.
As from given text ....
Prayers and chanting
"Prayers are ways of guiding our thoughts and energy in a certain direction; they are a technique in helping us transform our mind. By repeatedly thinking of the meaning of what we are saying or reading, we train and familiarise ourselves in a way of regarding and relating to ourselves and others. Thus for a person dedicated to developing of his or her Buddha potential, prayers and the activities of our daily life complement each other."
Aspiration
The world's happiest people are truly concerned with the happiness of others. They understand the sufferings of others and can only be happy if others are too. It is not enough to seek one's own happiness, you have to help others. We could recite this verse as part of our daily practise.
The four immeasurables (Aspiration for Universal Love)
May all sentient beings have happiness and the causes of happiness
May all sentient beings be free of sufferings and the causes of suffering
May all sentient beings never be separated from sorrowless bliss
May all sentient beings be in equanimity, free of bias, attachment and anger
Repentence
The practice of Buddhist repentence is not so much of asking for divine forgiveness. It is the clear recognition of our unskilful actions done intentionally or un-mindfully through our body, speech and mind.
After recognizing our faults, we make resolutions to be as mindful as we can, so as to never repeat them. In this sense, repentence is about forgiving oneself through expressing regrets and turning over a new leaf, absolving oneself of unhealthy guilt while renewing determination to further avoid evil, do good and purify our mind with greater diligence.
Dedication of merits
When we you do something positive for others, take a moment to spread the joy by dedicating merits to all sentient beings. If you just finished meditation, chanting or prostrating, you can put your hands together reverently and say :
May this merit I have accumulated
benefit all sentient beings.
May all sentient beings be well,
and may they all attain perfect peace.
Own thoughts:
Dedication of merit to other sentient beings will not reduce our merits just like a candle uses its flame to light other candles. The original candle will not reduce its brightness and the room will be brighter due to cumulative efforts of all the lit candles.
My reflection is that rituals and practises are very important and in fact is a part of and a good way to cultivate ourselves spiritually. Saying that not going to the temples and believe that striving using ownselves effort, is actually very hard and far-fetched in certain sense to me. What makes us so sure we can work hard practising buddhism ourselves when we are even lazy to be in a temple.
Having said that, rituals are not all of spiritual life and over-dependence and reliance to rituals can cause attachments and slowing down of our practises. One should have their own judgement call as to whether they should trust the credentials of certain exotic rituals and whether one can mentally accept it. After all, there is no best method to serve the needs of all.
I believe the right ritual to go with is a ritual that does not lead to increment of greed, hatred and delusion.
Stay tuned for the next one by the last speaker I am introducing, Geshe Tenzin Zopa.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)