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.