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Enlightenment

Where is enlightenment?
Relief come from the very spot in which there was the pain? It’s already here.

Then, what is enlightenment?
Seeing with wisdom.

Then how does I arise wisdom?
The Arising of Wisdom=seeing the same thing you have seen everyday, with right view.

What is right view?
Right View= An insight into the true working of phenomena that leads to disassociation and final rest.

And how do I get this insight?
Mindfulness

Mindfulness of what?
Body, feeling, mental formation, and phenomena

How do I start?
Body: Know the body position all day long, reflect on food coming in and out, see the impermanence of the body, meditate on corpses, bring awareness to the body
Feeling: Pleasant, Unpleasant, Neutral, See them arising and passing, see how  external conditions mixed with internal perceptions create feelings, don’t chase pleasure and don’t evade pain
Concept: Calm the mind, know what mental qualities have arisen in the present moment, know what perceptions you hold, know your habit structures
Phenomena: See the world as changing, composed, and un-keepable.

And when do I start?
Now.

The World According to Zen

There is a school of thought in Mahayana Buddhism called Yogacara. This school’s great contribution to Buddhism was the Yogacara Abhidhamma, meaning “the higher dhamma” or “special dhamma.” And dhamma is another word for phenomena.

Yogacara is often referred to as the “mind only” school due to its theory that all experience and reality occurs in the mind only. The school’s method is about seeing Absolute reality while within the dualistic, mundane realm.

In seeing, the essence of mind is recognized as calm and quiet, the only disturbance coming from mental phenomena arising and decaying. It might be said that, in the end, Buddhism is about seeing the world clearly, about seeing phenomena clearly, and more precisely about seeing mental phenomena clearly.

According to Yogacara, then, when we come in contact with the external reality, what really happens is: an impulse interacts with a sense organ, from the sense organ a signal travels to the mind, and a mind object arises. Then, depending on how we relate to the object, mental phenomena (states) arise. If we react to these phenomena, we give that phenomena a definition or function. Eventually, the mental phenomena decay. It should be noted that the mind objects only represent the external stimulus. Or, as the scientist Alfred Korzybski once pointedly said, “The map is not the territory.”

An example. I see a man (external stimulus) with my eyes (sense organ) and I think of him (mind object). Depending on how I relate to the man, an emotional state (phenomena) arises. Let’s say, in this case, I relate with anger. I react out of this anger, yelling at the man (function). So, the function of the anger becomes yelling angrily. Eventually, the anger (phenomena) fades.

The formal logic: If my relationship to the man is my relationship to my mind object, then, if we generalize, my relationship to the man is my relationship to my mind. In the example above, I relate to the man with anger, therefore I relate to my mind with anger.

Thus, whatever I think about, and do to, another human being, I am thinking about and doing to my mind and, by extension, my self.

Tags: Abhidhamma, Absolute reality, Korzybski, phenomena, Yogacara

Personality

As babies, we are able to express ourselves rather well. When we want something, we cry, scream, and let all our emotions out nearly unchecked. Then, as we grow, depending on how our parents react to us, we see thatsome actions are acceptable. Others are not. We see this through the eyes of our mother, father or caretaker. We determine whether what we feel is right, wrong or worthy depending on how mother responds when we cry out for her to come.

This continues into childhood, when we venture into the outer world more often. We determine our self worth by the judgments and reactions from a broader range of people. These reactions are often based in greed, aversion or delusion. Also, children and adults have differing views of right and wrong, how one should act, and what one should say. So, we restrict our feelings and believe that some things we are saying and doing are unacceptable, or that we are unacceptable. This is the birth of holding our feelings and thoughts in. We suppress out of fear of worthlessness, rejection or abandonment (mostly from our mother or father).

As we grow older, we develop different patterns to express the suppressed feelings and thoughts. Some people get tattoos all over their bodies. Some start to be controlling out of fear that others will make them feel guilty or worthless. Some try to express the suppressed feelings in an extraordinarily loud tone, believing that volume will get their feelings across, when only expressing the feelings really can. Some seek love by mastering crafts and professions, because at some point openly showing love or pride was not acceptable. Maybe never acceptable but praise for a job well done was. These people do grand things to feel admired in place of love.

In all these cases, our view of reality and what we really want becomes perverted. And what we really want is love, acceptance and comfort, which give us a peaceful mind.

Eventually, we grow up and develop a personality. Often, this developed mind suppresses so much that over time it affects the body – cancer and neurological disorders are some of the symptoms. Sometimes the problem is genetic, but this also requires certain actions or environmental conditions to switch the genes “on”.

The perverted wanting, the looking for the wrong thing, the desire to be fulfilled, and the wrong way of going about it, the Buddha calls samsara (cyclical existence). According to the Buddha, the cause of samsara is ignorance and craving.

What we do here is figure out what we really want and how we search for it in the wrong way. Most of the time, we are. Actually, from the Buddhist perspective, most of us are crazy and everyone is suppressing something.

That doesn’t mean that our lives are not interspersed with joy, love, wisdom, kindness and inspiration, but that there is a lot right in front of our nose that we can work on.

Sunshine

What does it mean to stand for what you believe in? How do you know whether you are just being stubborn, ignorant or crazy? I guess that is always the question; along with the accompanying risk of putting your foot down for something. Lately, I have been trying to stand up for what I believe in, bit by bit. Simple things.

In our Pagoda there is much to do and not many people to do it. And everyone needs help!

It is a common occurrence that I blindly think, “What I am doing is not so important. What they are are doing is more important.”

So, often, I say, “Yes, I can help” and forget about my practice or work. Or, I hide so I don’t have to confront the plea.

But, it seems, both of these avoid dealing with the reality. If I think that my work, meditation or rest is of use to my mental and physical well being, then it is of worth!

Of course there is always the voice in my head that says, “You are so selfish! How dare you dismiss their needs! You should be ashamed!”

But happily this guilt-endowing voice is getting more and more quite.

Really, if we work ourselves to the bone, to sicknesshuegioi31, to anger, to frustration or to depression on a regular basis, what good can we be to the rest of the world?

There is one meditation master who says, “The pen is mightier than the sword, but the smile is mightier than the pen.”

Only if we can be sunshine in this world is our time worth while.

So, please arrange your time and your day.

Stand for what you believe in, take care of your mind today and be sunshine!

Want

When we want, its not that we want but its that the Want wants

That wanting is only the Want wanting

And the Want wants and wants and wants

And what the Want wants is whatever the want wants

But its not what we want

Or should I say, what the Want wants is not what we want or want to want

What we want is actually to be free of the Want

We try to get what the Want wants to stop the wanting of the Want

But this Want doesn’t stop wanting, it just goes on to want another want

So if we really want to stop the Want, we must not give the Want what it wants

Only see clearly the Want

There is the Want, and we don’t want the Want

And actually thats all we want

Because when there is no Want

There is peace

Your choice

Little do we know or realize, but we have a choice in how we see things. Right now it might seem like our reactions are automatic and out of our control. This is because they are. At the moment, we react to life mostly out of habit.

When I was a child, my mother sat our family down at the dinner table one night. She gave each one of us a pencil and a piece of paper and told us to draw a picture of the television set. We drew it. Then she had us look at each other’s pictures and pointed out that each one of us sees the same object differently. There was only 1 television, but 4 interpretations of it. This idea didn’t really kick into my head until much later on in my life and a many years down the spiritual path.

During our meetings with Ajahn Brahm, he told us a story about a trip to Indonesia. He was going to give a talk to an audience of 10,000 people. When his plane landed the patron from the event approached him and fretfully told him the bad news. There had been 99 reported causes of SARS in Indonesia and it might be too dangerous to have the event. They might have to cancel. The Venerable Ajahn looked at the men and asked how many people live in Indonesia. They estimated an upwards of 3 million people. “So”, he said, “the chances of someone with SARS coming to the talk is 1 in 300,000. I think it will be ok.” This simple change of viewpoint turned around the minds of the event patrons and the event went on successfully (and SARS free).

When we notice that we are focused on a negative, there is always a relative positive. Just as when you touch cold ice, you can say the ice is cold or that your hand is warm. There are always two sides. We can think about how cars are polluting the earth, or we can be thankful about how easily we can travel to important places. We can be angry at what the President did or be thankful that he invigorated the public’s interest in the country. We can notice our faults or we can see our strengths. And it’s really just a choice we can make.

Next time you go outside, try to only look at the color blue. You will see blue everywhere. You will see how much blue there is in the world. Then next time only try notice the color green. You will notice every plant and street sign. Cars and shirts and eyes. Then look for red. Then the next time only look for living things, then only man-made things. Only look at people. You will start to notice that whatever it is you want to see, you will find everywhere. It almost becomes overwhelming. It’s because there are actually all possibilities. Everything is there. A full spectrum of colors is present, and it’s only through our unrealized habits that we take certain pieces again and again and leave the rest as non-existent.

Try to change your perspective and see things from another angle. Nothing’s all good or all bad. It’s just what we make of it.

Take Care

During Ajahn Brahmavamso’s visit to our temple he gave some really great advice to our Sangha. Don’t work so much! He explained that in the mundane world in the world before we became monks or nuns before we really became interested in meditation, we became successful in the world by putting in a lot of effort, trying hard , setting goals and meeting them. Ajah Brahmavamso told us that to become successful in meditation is a different direction.

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Enlightenment by Ajahn Brahm

The Venerable Ajahn Brahm told us that if you really understand enlightenment then you must be able to explain it in simple terms. In fact, you need to be able to explain enlightenment in a way so simple that the girl serving you beer can understand.

So here is a simple understanding of enlightenment in the form of a story. This is a story called the 5 Children Playing the Wishing Game…

Once upon a time, 5 children were playing the wishing game. The child who came up with the best wish would win the wishing game.

First was a young boy, maybe seven or eight, and he said if he could have any wish he would wish for a McDonalds hamburger with double fries (because his mother was Buddhist and wouldn’t allow him to eat hamburgers).

So they asked the second child if she could you think of a better wish. And the second child was a young girl and she said that she would wish for a McDonalds restaurant so she could eat as many hamburgers as she wanted.

Then came to the third boy. He had more time to think as the others and he said that he wants a billion dollars. So he could buy a McDonalds restaurant, then buy a video game store and play all the video games he wants. Then he would buy a school so he could spend all day playing video games then give himself good grades. Then he’d buy a university and pass himself through that too. Then he still has enough money for the rest of his life. So he asked if anyone could think of a better wish than that. The fourth child, a girl, had to think very deeply and she came up with a better wish.

The fourth girl was very clever. She said if she had a wish, she would wish for 3 wishes. With the first wish she would wish for a McDonalds restaurant, with the second wish she would wish for a billion euros, and for the last wish she would wish for 3 more wishes. So she was clearly winning the wishing game.

But there was one boy left, and he would go on to win the wishing game. But how can you find a better wish than an infinity of wishes? Well, this boy was named Buddha, and he said, “If I had one wish, I would wish that I was so content that I would never need another wish again.” And that wish won the wishing game.

That describes nirvana, enlightenment, that you are so content that you don’t want anything else. Most people in the world want an infinity of wishes, to be wealthy, to be powerful, but to be so content that you don’t want any more wishes, this is enlightenment. 

Tags: ajahn brahm, buddhism, enlightenment