On Trying To Be Buddhist

New Year 2013

New Year Wishes - 2013

I see that this blog has gotten a number of hits in the past few days from people looking for something about the the new year.  In fact I usually pay more attention to the Tibetan New Year which, based on a lunar calendar, occurs this year on February 11th.  But to give something to anyone who does find their way to this page, here once again is Longchenpa’s prayer of compassion.  Wishing you all good things in this coming year; peace and happiness, understanding and wisdom.

Longchenpa’s Prayer of Compassion

May the lives of ailing sentient beings be extended and made meaningful.
May those who are suffering from hunger or thirst obtain sustenance,
Those who are afflicted by external fears become fearless,
And everything that beings desire be granted exactly as they wish.

May all sentient beings do good and swiftly attain enlightenment.
May those in power rule with justice,
Governments be of service and ministers be endowed with wholesome qualities,
And the public remain in peace at all times.

May all sentient beings be free from all possible forms of suffering.
May they attain liberation,
Their minds free of unwholesome states,
And their time devoted to realizing their true nature.

May there be bountiful harvests in all the lands.
May there be no sickness or any threat to life,
No conflict between self and others,
And peace and prosperity everywhere.

May limitless sentient beings in the ten directions be free from suffering.
May whatever they put their mind to bear fruit,
And may they attain bliss
As a result of the merit accumulated from this prayer.

Why Practice?

Why practice?  This is Buddhism 101 (or Christianity 101 for that matter - for this question really applies to all religions.)  What is the purpose of practice?  Not an unreasonable question to ask today - Christmas Day - since I’ve been watching various services on TV.  (I must confess though that I haven’t listened to any sermons.)  

In any case, the answer relates to what I think the purpose of religion, and in particular, my religion is.  Generally, I think the purpose is to connect with what is meaningful in reality.   Define what is meaningful, describe how to connect, and put that into action - all that is the practice.  

Buddhism has a pretty effective way of talking about this - we speak of the threesome, view, meditation, and action - which correspond to, and specify, the three steps outlined above.  The first step is to articulate the view very clearly.  I have lost focus on this which is why I can even ask my initial question.  

Now things get a bit more complicated because Buddhism, like other religions, has many variations.  Each has its own view - so the first specific question is, what tradition of Buddhism am I following?  Vajrayana - and within that, what lineage?  Nyingma - Longchen Nyingthig/ Dzogchen even.  Can I spell out the view for that?  A good place to start would be Tulku Thondup’s ngondro book in which he spells out the nine yanas.

Thoughts on Newtown

Our country, our culture is fragmented - and has been ever since there was any significant population.  We came from so many different places, hold so many different beliefs.  There are important areas of agreement, even though it is often grudging and strained and includes only the minimum necessary to hold us together as a nation.  Even so, we have had one terrible civil war and there are continuing levels of regional distrust.

What is different in these days is the level of communication.  In our past, and right up until the internet age, people who disagreed or had different opinions and ideas might be totally ignorant of each other.  At the least they could keep apart, each go their own way.   But now between broadcast and online media, and all the social network programs like Facebook and Twitter, forums, blogs, and email, it’s impossible to avoid those with whom one disagrees.

The force of fragmentation increases as it becomes inescapable.  The energy that used to go into moving people and groups apart, and into their own communities, can now only go inward - into anger and argument. 

There’s a lot of discussion of what can be done to put a brake on this destructive process.  Strengthening gun control was the first topic - and an appropriate one.  But it involves only trying to remove one of the instruments of hatred and destruction, when the obvious issue is that hatred itself. 

It seems that young killer in Newtown had serious mental problems and deficits.  Maybe in that sense, simple hatred was not the origin of this tragedy.  But we also know that he lived in an environment of fear, in anticipation of some national or world-wide disaster.  We know that in that environment, it seemed normal to possess pistols, rifles, even assault rifles along with quantities of ammunition.  

The simple truth is that love is more powerful than hate, and can dissolve the distance and anger that arise in the face of differences.  Love, kindness, and respect can heal fragmentation and we are rapidly coming to a point when our only choices are to heal it or to succumb to the destruction it engenders.  The good news is that this is a true choice - in each of us is the source of either healing or destruction.  Our common humanity is a sufficient basis for respect at the very least.  There are many ways of working with this - and the way out of our suffering is to learn about them and to work deliberately and persistently to nurture community - even a community of differences. 
 

Griffin's "Hermitage Journals"

This afternoon I read the final pages of John Howard Griffin's The Hermitage Journals  and now I have that sadness of parting with a friend that sometimes comes with the end of a good book.  It's a sadness made more poignant by the beauty and vibrancy of the man who revealed himself in these journals.   

When the Trappist monk Thomas Merton died in December of 1968, his monastery invited Griffin, an accomplished writer himself as well as a good friend of Merton's, to write the official biography.  Griffin began right away and for several years, he spent one or two weeks nearly every month living in Merton's hermitage at the monastery of Gethsemani,  going over Merton's journals and papers, interviewing the monks with whom he had lived, and writing.  Being in Merton's hermitage let Griffin experience the solitude that had been so important to Merton and The Hermitage Journals are Griffin's  record of this time and experience. 

I read this this book in the first place  because  somewhere in my internet wandering I came across a statement that Griffin expressed his experience of solitude extraordinarily well.  That and the connection  with Thomas Merton drew me in.  In some ways it's a simple book, full of the small details of each day - coffee and a boiled egg for breakfast, sweeping the hermitage, washing clothes, and hours of writing, work on the biography itself as well as his own journal entries.   Some of the monks came up to the hermitage each day, bringing supplies, staying to celebrate mass, and join Griffin for a meal afterwards.  And there were the hours alone - here is one entry:

Later - afternoon - 2:15  and nothing much gets done because I sit here in this magnificent silence and watch the sun move tree shadows across the snow, interrupting this only to go into the chapel and stay with the blessed Sacrament.  Just sit there and watch the white, reflected light against the white-washed stone walls of that tiny room.  I did go out for awhile and photograph at close range the snow, the deer tracks, the bits of golden weed stems that pop up in isolated little patches through the snow, smelling the pines, smelling the wood smoke from my fireplace.  I spent a long, long time, until finally my feet were frozen. [p 72]

 Griffin's health was not good - among other things, he was diabetic and was still suffering the effects of injuries received in  WWII.  As his work on the biography progressed, Griffin's health declined, until he could not continue.   Sometime after 1972 he stopped work on it and the responsibility was then given to Michael Mott, who in 1993 published The Seven Mountains of Thomas Merton.  A balanced and you might say objective portrait of Merton, this was a very different book from what Griffin would have produced. 

Reading these journals over the past couple of weeks I've encountered someone extraordinary.

Great Freedom

Last night I was reading Heart Advice from a Mahamudra Master, by Gendun Rinpoche.  

The master embodies the awakened mind - he or she is not merely what we see as their external form...

When we direct a prayer to our master, we do not turn to their person but rather to the awakened mind that they embody.  The communication from student to lama takes place from mind to mind... When we sincerely wish to receive our lama's blessings, our heart opens.  Through this opening of our heart, our mind will meet with the lama's awakened mind in a completely natural way...

It is the heart of devotion that is the real lama, and from the moment this certainty dawns in us, the lama will always be present.  Then even their death cannot separate us from them, as the awakened mind is beyond death and dying.  Our prayers will continue to reach them, and their blessings can still lead us onward.

I am grateful, on this Independance Day, for our country which makes it possible to seek freedom and liberation as our hearts and conscience direct. 

 

Year of the Dragon



Year of the Water Dragon - 2012

Longchenpa’s Prayer of Compassion
 
May the lives of ailing sentient beings be extended and made meaningful.
May those who are suffering from hunger or thirst obtain sustenance,
Those who are afflicted by external fears become fearless,
And everything that beings desire be granted exactly as they wish.
 
May all sentient beings do good and swiftly attain enlightenment.
May those in power rule with justice,
Governments be of service and ministers be endowed with wholesome qualities,
And the public remain in peace at all times.
 
May all sentient beings be free from all possible forms of suffering.
May they attain liberation,
Their minds free of unwholesome states,
And their time devoted to realizing their true nature.

May there be bountiful harvests in all the lands.
May there be no sickness or any threat to life,
No conflict between self and others,
And peace and prosperity everywhere.

 May limitless sentient beings in the ten directions be free from suffering.
May whatever they put their mind to bear fruit,
And may they attain bliss
As a result of the merit accumulated from this prayer.

From Longchenpa’s autocommentary to his root text Kindly Bent To Ease Us.
English translation by Traleg Kyabgon, in: Mind At Ease, p. 89-90.

However we reckon our years, these wishes say it all - so here is the prayer again.  May the coming year be happy and fruitful.

My thanks to Kaia Thomas for her kind permission to use her painting, Dragon 2012  which is available at her site.

Gifts

Another easy post - two gifts to begin the new year. 

To start, here is something called  "The Eyes of Boudha."  It's a piece written by Amy Chavez, a young accupuncturist who visited Nepal  as a volunteer working with Mindful Medicine Worldwide.  Amy writes about her brief time in Bodhnath, or Boudha, working in a clinic there, and exploring this center of Tibetan culture in exile.   There are two gifts in this brief travel essay.  First, Boudha itself, as the reader is dropped right in the middle of its noise, activity, smells, and sights.  And second, a hint of another way of being, immersed in kindness and compassion.

And next - for the delight of it, the baskets of Brian Jewett. 

On New Year's Eve

Tonight a little break. 

It's New Year's Eve and I wish everyone a wonderful new year.   The very best wishes I can think of are expressed by Longchenpa:

Longchenpa’s Prayer of Compassion
 

May the lives of ailing sentient beings be extended and made meaningful.
May those who are suffering from hunger or thirst obtain sustenance,
Those who are afflicted by external fears become fearless,
And everything that beings desire be granted exactly as they wish.
 
May all sentient beings do good and swiftly attain enlightenment.
May those in power rule with justice,
Governments be of service and ministers be endowed with wholesome qualities,
And the public remain in peace at all times.
 
May all sentient beings be free from all possible forms of suffering.
May they attain liberation,
Their minds free of unwholesome states,
And their time devoted to realizing their true nature.

May there be bountiful harvests in all the lands.
May there be no sickness or any threat to life,
No conflict between self and others,
And peace and prosperity everywhere.

 May limitless sentient beings in the ten directions be free from suffering.
May whatever they put their mind to bear fruit,
And may they attain bliss
As a result of the merit accumulated from this prayer.

From Longchenpa’s autocommentary to his root text Kindly Bent To Ease Us.
English translation by Traleg Kyabgon, in: Mind At Ease, p. 89-90.

 

Renunciation - Part 3

Yesterday I ended with two questions:  does the goal of liberation require this thoroughgoing abnegation; and  is monasticism the best or only way to achieve it?

That first question really has to be considered first - it involves asking what liberation is.  Rather than get into a long discussion of this, I'd like to give a few quotes from a teaching by Khenpo Migmar Tsering, who was a highly accomplished and revered Sakya lama.  In a teaching on the philosophy of liberation, he first discusses the basic meaning of liberation: release from suffering.  He goes on to describe the different Buddhist schools of thought that developed and eventually he comes to the distinction between the relative, or conventional, and ultimate views of reality. 

...whatever appears to the worldly mind is true only to that mind and so it is only conventional and not ultimate. In this case, what appears to be true to the beholder is not so in the real sense, because the object in question does not exist by its own and the mind of the beholder is tainted with delusions.  By this reasoning all types of worldly mind are considered as false and whatever appears to them is not real...

The ultimate truth is the object of a perfect knowledge. For the sake of explanation it is divided into two kinds, the nominal ultimate truth and the actual ultimate truth. That which is the object of analysing mind is nominal truth. In fact this is the mental image of the ultimate truth, which is projected in the conceptual mind of the meditator. It is through image of the ultimate truth that one is trained in the study and meditation of the ultimate truth. The actual ultimate truth is said to be beyond thought and expression. It is the actual mode of being of every phenomena.

Liberation means becoming freed from the perspective of ordinary, conventional reality, which is in fact unreal, into this "actual mode of being of every phenomenon."   Note that it's the very unreality of conventional 'reality' that produces its unsatisfactoriness and is the root of suffering. 

What is involoved in this shift?  Does it require some form of asceticism?

Renunciation - Part 2

What is renounced and why?  As soon as I began looking for material on the Internet, I came across a blog post that was very helpful.  The author begins the main section:

In Buddhist circles, renunciation is spoken of most often in reference to an individual’s choice to take up the robes of a monastic, to shave one’s head and ‘renounce’ the life of a layperson in order to practice Buddhism in a dedicated manner.

A nice description from the Buddhist perspective, which is where I want to start. 

To put it another way, what is renounced is the rich, pleasant, and varied material life of a layperson (at least of the fortunate ones) to enable a more dedicated spiritual practice, and presumably speed one toward the goal of that practice, liberation. 

The questions here lead off in two different directions, both alluring.  First - does the goal of liberation require this thoroughgoing abnegation; and second, is monasticism the best or only way to achieve it?
Questions for tomorrow.