Basics of Buddhism

Here is an overview of Buddhist principles and practices. Buddha was a man named Siddartha Gautama, who lived 2500 years ago, and through a series of explorations, he discovered a way of life that brought more happiness than he had ever imagined possible. He went on to share his discovery with many people of his time, and they discovered that happiness as well. The Buddha always taught that there was nothing special about him—that each person has everything they need to dissolve suffering and experience happiness. The Buddha found that the key to real happiness is to change our thoughts, intentions and actions, and by doing so, we will find happiness innately within us, regardless of our external circumstances.

His first teaching was about the Four Noble Truth and the Eightfold Path:

The first Noble Truth is that Life can be difficult. Most of us will find that we sometimes have trouble coping with what is happening both around us and inside of us. Buddha recognized this truth and explained the importance of it in a story. He told the story of a mother who lost her only son. Overwhelmed with grief, she took his body to the Buddha to find a cure. The Buddha asked her to knock on the door of each house in the village and bring back a handful of mustard seeds from any family that had never lost a child, husband, parent or friend. When the mother returned, unable to find such a house in her village, she realized that death and suffering are common to us all.

So, the second Noble Truth is that we are all trying to be happy. We try to feel satisfied in our lives, but often we seek satisfaction in ways that are inherently dissatisfying. We eat too much or drink too much or smoke, trying to get some relief, trying to be distracted from our pain, trying to fit in or feel better, but somewhere within us we know that the long term result will be less happiness. Yet, we still continue to do things that become a vicious cycle. This is part of our seeking that is inherently dissatisfying. The other dissatisfying process we use is to put labels on everything around us, labels of good, bad or indifferent. Clinging to what we have labeled as good, pushing away the bad or the potentially painful, and ignoring everything else. This is the labeling and constant action of pulling and pushing and ignoring, trying to get ourselves and our friends and our houses and our jobs and our families JUST RIGHT, so they will make us happy and not make us irritated. The Buddha realized that it can never be made so. You can try as hard as you want to make yourself happy by manipulating your external circumstances, but you will never be happy for long until you find happiness within yourself, regardless of your external circumstances.

The good news, in the Third Noble Truth, that within each of us, we have everything we need to live a happy life, regardless of what’s going on around us. And he goes on to describe the eightfold path, which is the Fourth Noble Truth, which gives us a roadmap for living a life full of joy, compassion, love and wisdom.

The Eightfold Path includes the following steps:

• Right View: Seeing things as they truly are, not through the filters of our past experiences

• Right Intentions: Buddha emphasized, “ As we think, so we become” Changing our intentions changes the way we see and experience the world

• Right Speech: Speaking in a way that supports ourselves and others on their spiritual path

• Right Action: Acting in ways that are wise and compassionate

• Right Livelihood: Working in a way that supports oneself and others on their spiritual journey

• Right Effort: Having a passion for enlightenment

• Right Mindfulness: Practicing mindfulness by being fully present in each moment

• Right Concentration: Practicing meditation to train our mind

(translation from “Awakening the Buddha Within” by Lama Surya Das)

In addition to this first teaching, there is another important Buddhist practice. It is called Taking Refuge in the Three Jewels: the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. All Buddhist traditions begin with a teaching on these three components for transforming your life. At the beginning of each meditation, we begin by reciting The Refuge Prayer, which reminds us that, until we attain complete enlightenment, we can take refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha, to support and encourage us.

First, The Buddha. Many of you, I’m sure, have seen pictures of Buddhist Temples and there are always lots of statues of Buddha all around. The Buddha statues remind us that each of us can attain enlightenment, just as the Buddha did. That within in each of us is this Buddha Nature, Unity would call it our Christ Consciousness. That innate goodness within each and every one of us. The statues do NOT mean that we are worshipping The Buddha. Buddha’s teaching emphasize that everything he did, anyone else can do also. So, we can take refuge in knowing that we are innately good and that someone before us was able to attain enlightenment, and not just Buddha but many after him, including Jesus. Taking refuge in the Buddha in our recognition of our own innate goodness, encourages us to keep trying.

Second, The Dharma. Dharma is a Sanskrit word, Sanskrit being the ancient language of Hindu and Buddhist texts, much like Hebrew and Greek were for Christian texts. Dharma has many definitions but in this context, it describes the “Eternal Truth” in Buddhism, the truth about the way things are and will always be. So, Dharma represents the teachings of all the enlightened teachers that came before us and were kind enough to write down or speak these eternal Truths, so that we can learn and grow as they did. So, we take refuge in the Dharma, the teachings of enlightened beings.

Third, The Sangha. Sangha is a Pali word that is translated as “community”, but more importantly in the refuge vows, Sangha represents all the people in our lives that are committed to supporting us on our spiritual path. Until we reach enlightenment, we can take refuge in the support of others on a similar spiritual journey, who will encourage us and urge us to grow spiritually and transform our lives. This refuge in the spiritual community is critical to our spiritual growth.

Then, there are two other important tools to practice to cultivate our innate goodness: Mindfulness and Meditation.

The first practice is meditation, which is about setting aside time during each day to practice being fully aware of our breath, or a mantra, or a chant or some other specific activity. With everything coming at us every day, each of us can benefit from even 5-10 minutes of quiet time each day. When you think about how many minutes there are in any given day, it seems ironic that we struggle to find even 5-10 minutes to just be quiet. Find the quietest place in your home. You can sit on a chair or a cushion. The importance is to daily spend a few minutes, preferably 20-30 minutes, just concentrating on your breath and loosening our stranglehold on thoughts. Meditation can be like untangling a knot, let the rope go loose. We practice to get more comfortable with just resting in natural awareness.

Mindfulness is perhaps better described as Compassionate Attention. Instead of sleepwalking through our lives—glossing over our thoughts and actions, looking for distractions and things and activities that numb us out, ignoring and trying to run away from our problems—instead, we commit to waking up and being more aware in our lives. Having recently been with a dear friend that passed away, I can unequivocally say that at the end of our lives, we will want to have lived as fully and as awakened as we possibly can, for as many moments as we possible muster. Now is the time to wake up to whatever is happening in your life, not trying to sleep through the bad parts and gobble up just the good. By awakening we can better deal with the pain and frustration that is a natural part of life and more fully experience the good. Buddha was trying to teach us that happiness is an inside job. First, decide to be happy, then adjust your thinking and actions accordingly. So, we can practice being mindful in each moment by breaking down our thoughts and action into smaller and smaller parts. Like breaking down the act of walking into smaller and smaller components—the thought of going walk, lifting the leg, feeling the muscles and tendons contract, moving the foot forward, placing the food. Etc

So, practicing Buddhism does not mean that we have to become a Buddhist or renounce whatever other spiritual practice or religion we might already have. Practicing Buddhism is about recognizing our innate goodness, and working with our thoughts and actions to live a more intentionally happy life. We learn to change our internal world, which is the only action that will ever transform our outer world. Each of us gets to choose whether we get to live the life of joy and compassion, love and wisdom

So each of us are always At the Brink of Truth

Every breathing moment of our lives presents us with the possibility of awakening to wisdom or getting mired in fear. Every action, every thought we generate gives us an opportunity to discover our true selves. We alone can choose.

–Ajahn Sumano Bhikkhu with Emily Popp, from Meeting the Monkey Halfway (Weiser)

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I love this quote by Pema Chodron!

Are you really ready to let go?

"Working intimately with a teacher is the same as learning to stop shielding ourselves from the completely uncertain nature of reality. All the ways that we hold back and shut down, all the ways that we cling and grasp, all our habitual ways of limiting and solidifying our world become very clear to us, and it's unnerving. At that painful point, we usually want to make the teacher wrong or make ourselves wrong or do anything that is habitual and comforting to get ground back under our feet. But when we make an unconditional commitment to hang in there, we do not run away from the pain of seeing ourselves—and this is a revolutionary thing to do and it transforms us. But how many of us are ready for this? One has to gradually develop the trust that it is ultimately liberating to let go of strongly held assumptions about reality."

–Pema Chodron, from "Unconditionally Steadfast: An Interview with Pema Chodron," Tricycle, Fall 1999

What is Mindfulness?

The practice of mindfulness is an important tool for awakening that is included in the Eightfold Path, from Buddha's first teaching. The word mindfulness is the translation for "Sati" in Pali. However, sometimes translations can mislead us from the original intent. For instance, when I first heard about mindfulness and started to try to practice it, it felt more like I was monitoring—mindfulness seemed to take on a sense of judging, comparing: “Am I doing it right?”, "I wish I wasn't having negative thoughts!" "Is everyone else doing it better than me?", etc. But Pema Chodron prefers the translation of Sati as “compassionate attention", where we are applying attention to our thoughts and emotions and feelings, but also having a kind attitude towards ourselves and others. Compassionate attention seems to better describe the gentleness we need to have with ourselves and others in order to stay present. Sometimes, the judgment that arises when we realize what we are really thinking or feeling can cause us to shut down, to deny, to ignore, and yet recognizing when we are shutting down is also a vital part of the process. So, the good news is that we can't get it wrong, as long as we keep trying.

Whether shutting down or opening up, we can see more clearly how we are interacting with ourselves and the world around us. We can recognize that we can choose to live compassionately and with great joy, regardless of our past, regardless of anything happening in our lives right now, regardless of what we think the future will bring. We can choose using compassionate attention.

From Henepola Gunaratana, Mindfulness in Plain English

"Discipline is a difficult word for most of us. It conjures up images of somebody standing over you with a stick, telling you that you're wrong. But self-discipline is different. It's the skill of seeing through the hollow shouting of your own impulses and piercing their secret. They have no power over you. It's all a show, a deception. Your urges scream and bluster at you; they cajole; they coax; they threaten; but they really carry no stick at all. You give in out of habit. You give in because you never really bother to look beyond the threat. It is all empty back there. There is only one way to learn this lesson, though. Look within and watch the stuff coming up--restlessness, anxiety, impatience, pain--just watch it come up and know when you’re hooked. Much to your surprise, it will simply go away. It rises, it passes away. As simple as that. There is another word for self-discipline. It is patience."

Who or What are we?

From Joseph Goldstein:

"The Buddha described what we call "self" as a collection of aggregates – elements of mind and body – that function interdependently, creating the appearance of woman or man. We then identify with that image or appearance, taking it to be "I" or "mine," imagining it to have some inherent self-existence. For example, we get up in the morning, look in the mirror, recognize the reflection, and think, "Yes, that's me again." We then add all kinds of concepts to this sense of self: I'm a woman or man, I'm a certain age, I'm a happy or unhappy person – the list goes on and on.

When we examine our experience, though, we see that there is not some core being to whom experience refers; rather it is simply "empty phenomena rolling on." It is "empty" in the sense that there is no one behind the arising and changing phenomena to whom they happen. A rainbow is a good example of this. We go outside after a rainstorm and feel that moment of delight if a rainbow appears in the sky. Mostly, we simply enjoy the sight without investigating the real nature of what is happening. But when we look more deeply, it becomes clear that there is no "thing" called "rainbow" apart from the particular conditions of air and moisture and light.

Each one of us is like that rainbow -- an appearance, a magical display, arising out of our various elements of mind and body."

Dharma Talk April, 2009 John Corbaley

Samatha and Vipassana

Janet has spoken several times in the last few months about the mechanics of meditation. She has given some good information about samatha and vipassana, the calm and insight which comes into play during periods of mental practice. As you may know, Janet’s knowledge and skills in this area come from what is known as Vajrayana teaching, the wisdom of Northern Buddhism as it is practiced in Tibet, Northern India, Mongolia, and those places where Tibetan teachers have traveled to spread their knowledge.

 

The knowledge and skills I have gained over the years comes from what is known as Theravada teaching, the wisdom of Southern Buddhism as it is practiced in Burma, Thailand, and Sri Lanka, and other places where teachers from those countries have traveled.

 

There are small nuances of difference between these two schools of teaching. Neither of them is inherently better than the other; the difference between them could be viewed mostly as a difference in perspective more than anything else. Personally, I think getting a divergence of views about teaching matters can be very beneficial, especially when discussing something like meditation. Sometimes learning ‘the one right way’ to do something can be limiting, when clearly there is no one right way which is better for anyone, particularly when it comes to meditation.

 

Today, I wanted to share what I have learned through study and experience about the interaction between the practices of samatha and vipassana, their occurrence and their use in meditative practice. One example I have found helpful I learned from a teacher many years ago. He taught about samatha and vipassana using the simile of a flashlight in his explanation of them.

 

He said imagine that you are in a huge dark cave. You have a small flashlight in your hand, and you turn it on. The beam coming from the flashlight is a column of light which, when you point it here and there, illuminates areas of the cave wall and ceiling. You can see quite clearly a small area where the flashlight is pointing. This is like the concentrated, calm focus of samatha.

 

During the samatha practice using the breath or a mantra, or some other device, the mind becomes concentrated. With repeated practice, some practitioners can achieve a great deal of concentrated focus which is signaled by appearance of a nimmita, a sign, called the acquired sign, a visual image which replaces the breath as its object of focus. The breath becomes silky. Concentration takes on an ease and lightness. This is the calm of samatha. With increased concentration, comes the more subtle counterpart sign which signals the stage of access concentration, called this because it is the entry or access point to the jhanas, the absorption states of more advanced concentration. Where samatha is gradually replaced by vipassana, as the mind shifts focus from an object, concept or sign, to reality itself.

 

Theravada teaching provides very specific instruction on achieving and maintaining this mental focus. The hindrances present themselves: desire, aversion, sloth, worry, and doubt. For each hindrance, a unique strategy is presented which relies on the power of absorption contained in the samatha practice. Sayadaw U Pandita is a renowned Theravada teacher and meditation master. He describes each antidote: for desire, the antidote is one pointedness of concentration.

 

For aversion, the antidote is the rapture and joy which comes along with deep concentration. For sloth, the jhanic factor of vitakka or aim helps open and refresh the mind. For worry, the deep comfort which arises allows the mind to watch both the pleasant and the unpleasant arise and pass away without aversion. For doubt, the jhanic factor of vicaara, or continuous attention--rubbing--allows the mind to maintain focus. 

 

Now, back to the flashlight. You’ve turned it on and pointed it around to illuminate points here and there on the cave wall. You focus on small concentrated areas with the focus of samatha. Now you take the flashlight, and carefully set it down on its base so that it’s pointing straight upward. If you step away a few feet from it, you begin to see, rather than points here and there, the entire cave dimly illuminated. As your eyes adjust, you gradually see more and more of the entire cave. You can appreciate the wholeness of the entire cave, not just parts of it here or there.

 

This is like the perceptual experience of vipassana. You can experience the rising and falling of phenomena in the moment, as mental events arise and pass away. You can experience the transitory nature of all phenomena. The dharma seals of impermanence, dissatisfaction, and egolessness become real as they are applied to your direct experience. This is the insight of vipassana. You will hear discussions about samatha, and vipassana as approaches to meditation. Sometimes you will even come across talk of a comparing nature; is one ‘better’ than the other? More necessary, more advanced? I don’t think any teacher with experience will draw these comparisons. Both are a necessary part of meditation.

 

Some insight meditation teachers favor what is known as a ‘dry vipassana’ approach which skips over samatha practice and goes right for vipassana without giving attention to calm focus. This method may work for some people. Many people, specifically Americans, report that they have difficulty with a concentration practice, and I think this is where the dry vipassana approach came from. Perhaps people were getting stuck in their meditative practice, having problems with samatha, and the teacher, seeing the futility getting stuck, says ‘try this.’ I think this method has value for those practitioners who experience problems with concentration.

 

The skillfulness of the teacher using this approach would be to know when to reintroduce concentration practice after the practitioner gains some skill with insight, and can then go on from there to increase the ability to achieve calm focus. In the long run, I think this is necessary. The Buddha gave a lot of emphasis to concentration practice in his direct instruction to his Bhikkhus. He clearly knew the value of samatha in the pursuit of nibbana. He taught the importance of the jhanas, the absorption states, in developing an appreciation of nibbana. These jhanas, absorptions states, are attainable with the application of samatha, concentration practice. I will close with a quote from the Vinaya Pitaka, in which the Buddha describes his use of the jhanas on the night of his enlightenment:

 

Unflinching vigor I have stirred up, clear mindfulness I have aroused, my body impassible, calm, my mind concentrated and one-pointed…I aloof from the pleasures of the senses, entered into the first jhana…rapturous and joyful. By allaying discursive thought, I entered into the second jhana…By fading out of rapture…and entered into the third jhana…By getting rid of joy and suffering, I entered into the fourth jhana…

 

With the mind thus composed I directed my mind to the knowing and recollection of my former lives, one, two, fifty, a thousand or a hundred thousand, the knowledge I gained in the first watch of the night….in the second I gained knowledge of the deceasing and arising of beings.

 

With the mind thus composed…immovable, I directed my mind to the knowledge of the extinction of outflows…This is suffering, this its arising, this its stopping. I understood as it really is. When this was known to me, my mind was freed from sense pleasures, becoming, speculative view and ignorance. In freedom the knowledge came to be: I am freed; and I comprehended that birth was destroyed.

 

This was the third knowledge attained by me in the third watch of the night; ignorance was dispelled, knowledge arose, darkness was dispelled. light arose even as I abided diligent, ardent, self-resolute. This Brahmin, was my third successful breaking forth, like a chick’s from the egg-shell (Conze, 1995. Buddhist Texts Through the Ages, pp. 60-62).

 

April 26, 2009.  John L. Corbaley, M.S., M.A.

 

 

 

 

Dharma Talk February, 2009 Bamyan

by John Corbaley

In March, 2001, Mullah Mohammed Omar ordered the destruction of colossal 180 foot tall statues of the Buddha which had stood there for 1500 years, and were the largest images of the Buddha in the world. In the face of international condemnation, even from many Islamic countries, over a month of shelling, dynamiting and mining reduced the giant figures to dust.

As the dust from those explosions spread over the landscape, what the Taliban did not realize was that their act of unskillful violence was only a prelude for renewed attention to Bamiyan, an attention which today supports a thriving enterprise of investigation, research and study into the times, peoples and culture which was responsible for the colossal Bamiyan statues and the monastery caves surrounding them.

In their destruction lay the seeds which would be responsible for a regeneration of interest in the Bamyan site and the thousands of monks who lived and prayed there. Bamiyan had once been the at the center of the silk road trade route and was an important crossroads between mediterranean Europe and Asia. It was a royal capital of the Kushan dynasty which had adopted Buddhism as its state religion. Its art was a combination of Greco-Roman and Asian forms which often depicted the Buddha with a distinctly western Apollo-like face and wavy hair, and elegant draping garments resemblant of classical Greek statuary. Such was the styling of the Buddhas at Bamiyan.

This destruction was transformed into a positive result. The attention of the world is now focused on Bamyan in a hundred productive and constructive ways. Out of the empty rage of destruction has come a new awareness of the importance of Bamiyan.
The shelling created clouds of dust which spread out over the landscape. Each grain of dust settling over the land was a seed of renewal. Archeologists, historians, and artists have returned to the area, bringing international tourist visitors generating new interest and activity.

Art historians studying the fragments of the Buddhas have discovered that these monuments were hundreds of years older than previously thought, placing them closer to the earliest Buddhist practice. Scientists working for UNESCO have discovered paintings done in oils in the caves where the monks lived around the mammoth statues. It had previously been assumed that oil painting was invented in Europe during the renaissance; so these scientists were surprised to find oil paintings done by the artists of Bamiyan dating from the seventh century.

The caves which escaped the Taliban destruction present a rich artistic history. They are described by representatives of the Huntington Archive at Ohio State University like this:
Each of the multitude of caves can be considered a unified composition in which painting and sculpture work together to form a single symbolic configuration with the Buddha at the center, surrounded by painted images of further Buddhas, bodhisattvas and other heavenly beings from Buddhist cosmology….

The wall paintings surround the central figure in concentric circles or vertical rows in the manner of a mandala, a conceptual representation of the Buddhist universe. The ceilings in particular are transformed into a “dome of heaven” through the manipulation of repeated Buddha forms around the central figure.

Together, the wall and ceiling paintings work with the sculpture to create an entire heavenly environment, a symbolic representation of the universe.

Archeologists are looking at restoration options for the mammoth statues. One approach they are considering is called anastylosis, often used for Greek and Roman temples, in which the original pieces are reassembled and held together with a minimum of new material. If you’ve seen pictures of the Parthenon, you’re familiar with this method. Analyzing the rock strata, they have worked out what part of the vast statue most of the pieces came from, many weighing up to 60 tons.

Archeologists returning to the area to salvage the remnants of the destroyed sculptures have also discovered a third enormous reclining Buddha obscured for millennia which will now be uncovered and displayed to the world.

One artist who came to Bamiyan is Hiro Yamagata. He is an artist specializing in laser installations, his newest work utilizes solar and wind energy to project holographic laser light images of the buddhas onto a rockface at Bamiyan in memory of the Buddhas. The lasers will be powered by the renewable energy of windmills and solar panels.

These generators will not only provide employment for the people of Bamiyan during their construction and operation, they will also provide electric power for the entire town. Planned for completion in 2012, his installation will fill the hollows in the rock face with shimmering light-created images of the majestic Buddha figures which once graced the mountain.

Mr. Yamagata comments: “My artistic concept is to create original images of Buddha and project them with the most unique, powerful and cutting edge laser technology of today onto the site where once the ancient Bamiyan Buddhas stood. Thus we will be able to revive the great creative spirit of mankind which produced the Great Buddha of Bamiyan centuries ago.
A collaboration of ancient and new art will become a cultural icon of revived civilization in Afghanistan. By permanently creating an artwork of laser system installation in Bamiyan, we intend to stimulate both the land and the people of Bamiyan.

More powerful than any missile or flying unmanned Drone, the positive, creative vibrations Mr. Yamagata is bringing to Afghanistan will transform the landscape, re-invigorate the people and cause wonderful positive change in the hearts and minds of Afghanis who now look upon most foreigners with justified suspicion and fear.

If we seek to follow a Buddhist path, the question becomes what are the lessons we take away from what has occurred at Bamiyan. Most important probably is the lesson of impermanence. The Taliban were only the latest in a series of forces reducing the colossal figures to dust. They only sped up the workings of nature in returning the stone to a natural form.

Even more important though, we might look upon this as a lesson in Karuna, the Pali word for compassion. We watch the video on the internet of the shelling and look for the lesson behind the disturbing images. You know the one. The difficult people in our lives are our greatest teachers. How easy it is to say these words. And when the lesson they are teaching you presents itself, it cuts like a bright light through the fog of delusion.

Mullah Mohammed Omar, The Taliban, Osama bin Laden, and Al Qaida present us with some tall-order lessons in compassion. They mirror back to us our own very human hatred and fear. Their unskillfulness we know too well in our own.
And so we watch the destruction and we can contemplate the nature of the impermanence, unsatisfactoriness, and egolessness of all things.
And compassion is our response. Our compassion, our Karuna, flows out to the mullahs, the terrorists, all of them.

When you think of the word compassion, what images come to your mind? Is it warm and fuzzy? Is it like a delicate flower or soft little puppy? Let me suggest a different image. When we are confronted with the intensity and the power of destructive images like the Buddhas, or like the twin towers on 9/11, it is hard to respond with complete and utter compassion to these difficult people.

Our compassion must be as durable and as pure as a diamond. It must not be a tender, vulnerable thing. Our karuna must be a impervious to doubt as a stone hard gem. It must be strong, and solid, and resolute. In Tibet, the title for an honored lama of great realization is “Rinpoche.” The word means jewel. I think they are described in this way to express how pure, rare, and precious they are. Our Karuna, too, must be pure and hard as precious stone.

And so we respond with Karuna, compassion to all beings on the planet. We demonstrate our pure, strong Karuna and send metta, loving kindness to Osama bin Laden, Mullah Omar, the Taliban and Al Qaida. We send them our thanks for the lesson in Dukkha, the first noble truth, they teach us today. May they and their families be happy and peaceful. May they be healthy and safe.

May we all see with the bright light of realization the pierces the fog of delusion surrounding us. May our pure, diamond-hard compassion conquer all the fear and hatred in the universe.


"Of course I help people, but it's more about not harming people.... I'm doing a fine art piece. That's my purpose - not for human rights, or for supporting religion or a political statement."


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhas_of_Bamyan