by Sakyong Mipham RinpocheAt the core of the Mahayana Buddhist teachings is the crown jewel of bodhichitta, the intention to bring all sentient beings to enlightenment. This is the supreme thought, the highest possible concept that the mind can generate. The person who has this intention of becoming awake in order to liberate others is a bodhisattva.At the conclusion of many lifetimes, a being may generate the supreme intention to benefit others. That is the first thought of a bodhisattva. It is also the last though — the final result of a long journey through every conceivable thought. At that point, there are no other thoughts, for there is no “I” in other. This supreme thought is pure: there are no contorted logics about why it is good to think about others. It is how the bodhisattva really feels. Finally, this thought has beauty and balance because it naturally benefits the bodhisattva and everyone else.The difference between our everyday thoughts and the bodhisattva’s thought is that most of us wake up with the thought of self — “What can I do to be happy?” Like the supreme thought of benefiting others, this thought is first, it is final, and it has its own kind of beauty, an innate symmetry in accord with its own needs. But with this ordinary thought, whether one engages in worldly or spiritual activities, they are all based upon the principle of self.
Just as that thought arises so easily and naturally for ordinary beings, the bodhisattva arouses a mind of bodhichitta, with “May others be happy” as the first thought. In that moment, the concept of self is completely evaporated. The bodhisattva’s consciousness and the intention to benefit others emerge together spontaneously.The transition between ordinary thoughts and bodhichitta happens as thoughts of others’ benefit begin to arise naturally and spontaneously. This is the pivotal step on the Mahayana path, for in it is the seed of full awakenment. It is the apex of concept and the lowest point of wisdom. It can be likened to dawn, which is both the brightest part of the night and the dimmest part of the day. In that light, wisdom is always there, and darkness is only a temporary state.Bodhichitta is known as the crown jewel of all the mind’s concepts, representing power and authority. Random thoughts of others amid those of self- concern are like the settings on the crown. It is called “wish-fulfilling” because when this thought of others is the first thought, always dawning, the natural result is the fulfillment of our own and others’ wishes.Conceiving of the intention to achieve enlightenment in order to benefit others is a sign of maturity. It means that after spending eons at coarse and obscured levels of consciousness, considering only how to benefit the self, the bodhisattva has experienced a pivotal understanding: he or she sees that the self is a fabrication, simply a thought that has been animated by the mind, like a cartoon. Pondering this, the bodhisattva concludes that thinking about the self only causes further suffering. It is the most confused, ignorant, and untrue thought possible — and the one on which many people base their entire lives.The bodhisattva understands that by gathering the various attributes of consciousness and body, the mind has created a bundle known as a “self.” Rather than feel the free-flowing quality of perceptions and experiences, the mind has consolidated them into one bale of hay — all because it could not handle interdependence. From that moment onward, it has based all its experiences on this identity called “me.” Similarly, it regards others not as interdependent but as separate selves too.Because forcing the disparate elements of mind and body into a single “me” is unnatural, trying to hold the concept together always causes tension, and the natural outcome of tension is further tension. When others threaten this tension called “me,” the concept becomes angry. When others cater to and flatter this concept, it wants to draw in the praise, and desire is added to the mix. When others’ self-fabrications have more finesse, this self cannot handle it, and becomes envious.Thus, the self experiences a perpetual universe of push and pull. To continue its storyline, it needs to fabricate a universe where it can act out its fantasy, which results in the process of birth, aging, and death. However, no matter what universe it fabricates, the concept of self is always in pain.It is from this confusion and suffering that the bodhisattva awakens. Seeing that the suffering is completely unnecessary, the bodhisattva wishes to alleviate it. It would be another matter if there were, in fact, a self that was causing all the suffering. However, the only source — if it can be considered a source — is the mind’s confusion.The thought of self is considered to be intelligence that cannot see things properly. We are in the dark, trying to feel our way. We might mistake a blanket for a dog, or grab a chair and think it is a table. Therefore, bodhichitta is considered to be the dawning of wisdom. When it is born, it continues; it is not a temporary state. When the supreme mind arises, it is joyful. Bodhisattvas’ minds are less coarse because they are more in line with the truth. Because bodhisattvas can see what they are doing, they enjoy their work of benefitting others. This work is delightful not because they are trying to suppress the notion of self, but because they are working in the open day. It is clear to them who they are and, more accurately, who they are not. Therefore, the bodhisattva is relieved of the thought of self and delighted by working for the welfare of others.
A Fresh Look at Karma
by Toni BernhardBecause I’ve written two books on chronic pain and illness, I get a lot of emails from those who are struggling with their health. Many of them want to know why this has happened to them, but not to others. Based on the current understanding of karma that circulates in our culture, they’ve come to believe that their health problems are karmic retribution for some past bad action, and so they’re sick or in pain sick because they have to work off this “bad karma.” Thus, they believe that karma acts as a kind of external justice system where they’re doomed to suffer based on some bad act they can’t even remember committing.I don’t believe this view of karma is consistent with what the Buddha taught. The literal translation of karma from Sanskrit is “action,” but the Buddha often said that karma means “intention”:Intention, I tell you, is karma. Intending, one does karma by way of body, speech, and intellect. (AN 6.63) To understand what the Buddha meant, it helps to think of your actions as having two components. (The word “action” would include physical action, speech, and thoughts—the equivalent of “body, speech, and intellect” in the above quotation from the Buddha.)The two components are:(1) your “bare behavior,” and(2) your intention behind that behavior.What matters is not the bare behavior that constitutes your action but your intention in engaging in that action. And, as the Buddha said: intention is karma.For example, consider the physical action of wielding a knife. The bare behavior = wielding a knife. But the intention behind that action could be to perform life-saving surgery or it could be to stab someone in anger or to steal from him.The Buddha identified six intentions that are the motivating force behind people’s actions:• good-will (or kindness)• compassion • generosity• ill-will (or anger)• cruelty• greedNotice how the first three intentions mirror the last three: good-will/ill-will; compassion/cruelty; generosity/greed.Actions that are based on the first three intentions are non-harmful to yourself and others and result in relieving suffering. The intention of the surgeon who wields a knife in order to save a life is one of good-will, and perhaps even compassion and generosity.In contrast, actions that are based on the last three intentions are harmful. The intention of the person who wields a knife in anger or in order to steal from another is one of ill-will or greed and intensifies suffering in this world.The same analysis that applies to the physical act of wielding a knife applies to speech. If a man yells at someone, “Don’t move!” that’s his “bare behavior.” But his intention could be based on good-will (trying to stop the person from stepping in front of a moving car) or it could be based on ill-will (the words “don’t move” being spoken with a gun pressed against the other person’s back). The same analysis applies to thoughts. If you’re thinking about the homeless, that’s the bare content of your thoughts. But your intention behind that thought could be compassionate (hoping they find a place to stay warm in the winter) or it could be cruel (hoping they get frostbite in the cold).Planting behavioral seeds that form your character Karma is crucial to your development as a wise, caring, and loving human being because, if you act out of a non-harmful intention, you predispose yourself to act that way again. In other words, you plant a behavioral seed. You begin to form a habit. Conversely, if you act out of a harmful intention, you predispose yourself to act that way again, making it more likely that the next time your behavior will be harmful.Here’s what the Buddha said on this subject:Whatever a person frequently thinks and ponders upon, that becomes the inclination of his mind…If a person’s thinking is frequently imbued with ill-will… his mind is bent by that thinking imbued with ill-will… (MN19) The key word in that quotation is “inclination.” Each time your intention is one of ill-will, your inclination to respond with ill-will is strengthened. In other words, you’re more likely to act out of ill-will in the future. Conversely, each time your intention is to be kind, your inclination to respond with kindness is strengthened. You’re, in effect, learning how to be kind and so you’re more likely to be kind in the future. The same analysis applies to the other four intentions.And so, by responding with kindness, compassion, and generosity, you are turning yourself into a person who is kind, compassionate, and generous. You are forming your character. This, in turn, has a positive effect on the world around you. (And of course, the converse is true, should you respond to the world with ill-will, cruelty, and greed.)The key to learning to incline yourself toward non-harmful intentions is to reflect on whether your proposed speech or action will intensify suffering for yourself and others or will ease it. Practicing mindfulness helps because it makes you more aware of your reactive tendencies. Then, instead of acting impulsively out of habit, you’re better able to examine your intentions before you act.The implications of this can be life-changing. It means that you have the ability to change yourself no matter how ingrained your habits are. As the Buddha said, “Intending, one does karma…” Thus, with the intention not to harm, you “do” karma, meaning that the person you become is kind, compassionate, and generous.Practicing with karma To get a feel for how karma as intention is the key to forming your character, pick an upcoming occasion and resolve to think, speak, and act with the intention of alleviating suffering. It could be a big event or just someone coming over to visit. As the event approaches, think about the ways you could behave with kindness, compassion, and generosity. Being kind is no more than being open-hearted and friendly to others. Being compassionate means being alert to anyone who is suffering and reaching out to help that person. Being generous means being generous with your listening, with your time, and with your attention.After the occasion, reflect on how you did, not in order to grade yourself, but in order to learn. Resolve to repeat this practice in the future, recognizing that you’ll be planting behavioral seeds that will form your character.***Postscript: Returning to the first paragraph of this piece and the subject of why some people have health problems and other do not. I believe that I’m sick and in pain because I’m in a body and bodies are subject to illness and injury and aging. It happens to everyone at some point in life. This is the essence of the Buddha’s first noble truth. Toni Bernhard is the author of the award-winning How to Be Sick: A Buddhist-Inspired Guide for the Chronically Ill and Their Caregivers and How to Wake Up: A Buddhist-Inspired Guide to Navigating Joy and Sorrow. Her newest book is called How to Live Well with Chronic Pain and Illness: A Mindful Guide. Before becoming ill, she was a law professor at the University of California—Davis. Her blog, “Turning Straw Into Gold” is hosted by Psychology Today online. Visit her website at www.tonibernhard.com.
Creating a Meaningful Life
By His Holiness the 17th Karmapa, Ogyen Trinley Dorje
How do you relate to this infinite ground of possibility that your life is built on? How can you create a meaningful life within whatever shifting circumstances you find yourself?
Buddhist thought devotes a great deal of attention to these questions. The view that life holds infinite possibility is explored using the concepts of “interdependence” and “emptiness.” When you first hear the term “emptiness,” you might think this suggests nothingness or a void, but actually “emptiness” here should remind us that nothing exists in a vacuum. Everything is embedded within a context — a complex set of circumstances. Those contexts themselves are endlessly shifting. When we say that things are “empty,” we mean they lack any independent existence outside of those changing contexts. Because everything and everyone is “empty” in this sense, they are capable of endless adaptation. We ourselves have the basic flexibility to adapt to anything, and to become anything.
Because of this, we should not mistake emptiness for nothingness. On the contrary, emptiness is full of potency. Understood correctly, emptiness inspires optimism, rather than pessimism, because it reminds us of the boundless range of possibilities of who we can become and how we can live.
Interdependence and emptiness show us that there are no fixed starting points. We can start from nothing. Whatever we have, wherever we are — that is the place we can start from. Many people have the idea that they lack what they need in order to start working toward their dreams. They feel they do not have enough power, or they do not have enough money. But they should know that any point is the right starting point. This is the perspective that emptiness opens up. We can start from zero.
In fact, emptiness can be compared to the concept and function of zero. Zero may seem like nothing, but as we all know, everything starts from it. Without zero, our computers would collapse. Without zero, we could not start counting from one up to infinity. In the same way, from emptiness, anything and everything can manifest itself.
Anything can come into being because there is no fixed way for things to be. It all depends on the conditions that come together. But this fact that anything is possible does not imply that life is random or haphazard. We can make anything happen, but we can only do so by bringing together the necessary conditions. This is where the concepts of “emptiness” and “interdependence” come together.
Every person, place, and thing is entirely dependent on others — other people and other things — as a necessary condition for its existence. For example, we are alive right now because we are enjoying the right conditions for our survival. We are alive because of the countless meals we have eaten during our life. Because the sun shines on the earth and the clouds bring rain, crops can grow. Someone tends to the crops and harvests them, someone else brings them to market, and yet another person makes a meal from them that we can eat. Each time this process is repeated, the interdependence of our lives links us with more and more people, and with more and more rays of sun and drops of rain.
Ultimately, there is nothing and no one with whom we are not connected. The Buddha coined the term “interdependence” to describe this state of profound connectedness. Interdependence is the nature of reality. It is the nature of human life, of all things and of all situations. We are all linked, and we all serve as conditions affecting each other.
Amid all the conditions that affect us, in fact, the choices we ourselves make and the steps we take are among the most important conditions that affect what arises from our actions. If we act constructively, what comes into being is constructive. If we act destructively, what results is destructive and harmful. Everything is possible, but also everything we do matters, because the effects of our actions reach far beyond ourselves. For that reason, living in a world of interdependence has very specific implications for us. It means our actions affect others. It makes us all responsible for one another.
Living this Reality
I realise this presentation might initially seem abstract, but emptiness and interdependence are not abstract principles. They are very practical, and have direct relevance when you are thinking about how to create a meaningful life.
You can see interdependence at work by looking at how your own life is sustained. Is it only through your own exertions? Do you manufacture all your own resources? Or do they come from others? When you contemplate these questions, you will see very quickly that you are able to exist only because of others. The clothes you wear and the food you eat all come from somewhere else. Consider the books you read, the cars you ride in, the movies you watch, and the tools you use. Not one of us single-handedly makes any of these things for ourselves. We all rely on outside conditions, including the air we breathe. Our continued presence here in the world is an opportunity made possible entirely by others.
Interdependence means we are continually interacting with the world around us. This interaction works both ways — it is a mutual exchange. We are receiving, but also giving. Just as our presence on this planet is made possible by many factors, our presence here affects others in turn — other individuals, other communities, and the planet itself.
Over the past century, we humans have developed very dangerous capabilities. We have created machines endowed with tremendous power. With the technology available now, we could cut down all the trees on the planet. But if we did so, we could not expect life to go on as before, except without trees. Because of our fundamental interdependence, we would all experience the consequences of such actions very quickly. Without any trees, there would not be enough oxygen in our atmosphere to sustain human life.
You may wonder what this has to do with the choices we make and how we live our life. That is simple: We all need to take interdependence into account because it influences our life directly and profoundly. In order to have a happy life, we must take an active interest in the sources of our happiness.
Our environment and the people we share it with are the main sources of our sustenance and well-being. In order to ensure our own happiness, we have to respect and care about the happiness of others. We can see this in something as simple as the way we treat the people who prepare our food. When we treat them well and look after their needs, only then can we reasonably expect them to take pains to prepare something healthy and tasty for us to eat.
When we have respect for others and take an interest in their flourishing, we ourselves flourish. This can be seen in business as well. When customers have more money to spend, businesses do better. If we wish to flourish individually and together as a society, it is not enough for us to simply acknowledge the obvious interdependence of the world we live in. We must consider its implications, and reflect on the conditions for our own welfare. Where do our oxygen and food and material goods come from, and how are they produced? Are these sources sustainable?
Relating to Reality
Looking at your experience from the perspectives of emptiness and interdependence might entail a significant shift in how you understand your life. My hope is that this shift can benefit you in practical terms. Gaining a new understanding of the forces at work in your life can be a first step toward relating positively to them.
My purpose in raising these issues is certainly not to terrify you by confronting you with harsh reality. For example, I have noticed that some people are uncomfortable when they are told that change is a fundamental part of life, or that nothing lasts forever. Yet impermanence is just a basic fact of our existence — it is neither good nor bad in itself. There is certainly nothing to gain by denying it. In fact, when we face impermanence wisely, we have an opportunity to cultivate a more constructive way of relating to that reality. If we do so, we can actually learn to feel at ease in the face of unexpected change, and work comfortably with whatever new situations might occur. We can become more skillful in how we relate to the reality of change.
The same is true of interdependence. Seeing life from this perspective can help us develop skills to relate more constructively to reality — but just knowing that we are interdependent does not guarantee that we will feel good about being so. Some people may initially find it uncomfortable to reflect that they depend on others.
They might think this means they are helpless or trapped, as if they were boxed in by those dependencies. Yet when we think about being interdependent, we do not need to feel it is like being stuck in a job working for a boss that we did not choose but have to deal with, like it or not. That is not helpful. We should not feel reluctant or pressured by the reality of our interdependence. Such an attitude prevents us from having a sense of contentment and well-being within our own life. It does not give us a basis for positive relationships.
Interdependence is our reality, whether we accept it or not. In order to live productively within such a reality, it is better to acknowledge and work with interdependence, wholeheartedly and without resistance. This is where love and compassion come in. It is love that leads us to embrace our connectedness to others, and to participate willingly in the relations created by our interdependence. Love can melt away our defenses and our painful sense of separation. The warmth of friendship and love makes it easy for us to accept that our happiness is intimately linked to that of others. The more widely we are able to love others, the happier and more content we can feel within the relations of interdependence that are a natural part of our life.
Becoming Intimate with Our Emotions
Working with emotions in meditation practice is a big subject for me. Very often, our thoughts are pretty lightweight. Just light, discursive thoughts. We’re thinking, “What’s for lunch?” or, “Did I remember to run the dishwasher this morning?” Sometimes we’re just having the strangest thoughts. Perhaps you are having a memory of your grandmother eating raw onions. Where does that come from?Sometimes these thoughts take you away. Usually they do. But many times, they don’t have a lot of emotion in them. These little things passing through your mind come and go like the wind. You can get completely caught up in this fantasy world, but on the other hand, it’s somewhat lightweight. When you realize you’re thinking, you say “thinking.” You let the thoughts go, and there you are in the present moment. Maybe it lasts only half a second.But if you sit longer, the more you sit, then—no question—painful memories will come up. Suddenly you are struggling against how you’re feeling, and a lot of emotion is involved.The instruction I’ve been giving for years is: when you’re meditating, and even in your everyday life, notice when you’re hooked. Notice when you’re triggered or activated. That’s the first step: you acknowledge that emotion has arisen.Next, I advise students to drop the story line and lean in. Just pause, and for a second connect in with spaciousness, with openness. I call this the “pause practice.” It’s like taking a time-out for yourself. Then you lean in to the quality or the texture or the experience, completely touching in to the emotion, without the story. How does the sadness feel? How does the anger feel? Where is it in your body? You let the feeling of the emotion become the object of your meditation. And the reason that I’ve been so committed to teaching on this is emotion itself is a radical and very potent way of awakening.Without a doubt, this is where everyone loses it. We have so much fear of our emotions, so much aversion to them. You get caught in the momentum of the emotion, and it sweeps you away as if you were in its control. But I’ve found that we can take another approach, which is to enter the emotions that arise in our practice. Emotions are actually very empowering; I call working with the emotions “accelerated transformation.” When you experience difficult emotions in your sitting practice, and you let go of the words and the story behind the experience, then you’re sitting with just the energy. And yes, it can feel painful to do this.It’s so funny, because sometimes when I give retreats, the TV cameras come in and take pictures of people meditating, and it looks like everyone’s sitting there in complete serenity.If you could see the speech balloons above people’s heads, or feel what’s going on with them, you might be knocked over in shock! The person next to you doesn’t know that you’re reliving a horror story from your childhood in graphic, heartbreaking detail, or that you’re in a deep depression, or that you’re having the world’s most pornographic fantasy. What we look like and what’s actually going on are often so completely different. We’re just sitting there in a Buddha-like posture, and it might appear that we are experiencing nothing but openness and calm—and nothing could be further from the truth. But I think the Buddha had the same experience that we do. For him, as for us, meditation isn’t always about sitting in a state of absolute calm. There is a scene in the movie Little Buddha where special effects are used to reflect the myriad emotions and temptations that are trying to seduce the Buddha. So much is coming at him—everything from gorgeous women to opportunities for power to things that are frightening, everything. The idea that the Buddha was completely chilled out and didn’t experience emotion around any of these things simply isn’t true. When the Buddha achieved enlightenment, he learned to be settled with all of those feelings coursing through him.Like the Buddha, you can come to know your own energy, and you can feel quite settled with it. You become intimate with your own energy, and it no longer rules your life. Your conditioning doesn’t go away, but it no longer controls you.In many ways, it is critical that we do become intimate with our emotions. Sometimes it is even a matter of life and death. I want to tell you a story about my granddaughter. Her mother, my daughter-in-law, died of alcoholism at age forty-eight when my granddaughter was seventeen years old. The addiction had been going on for a long time, from the time my granddaughter was about two. Her mother had a recovery and was sober for ten years, but then she relapsed.So my granddaughter was applying to college and she had to write an essay. One of the essays for the college was to write about a transformative experience, and the first line of her essay was, “My mother died on December 1, 2009.” And this essay was so remarkable to me because in it she explained how her mother had died of alcoholism, and she said, “all my mother’s friends from Alcoholics Anonymous were telling me, and I knew it to be true, that alcohol is a disease and once it has you in its grip it’s pretty hard to shake it, and they said that’s what happened with my mother.” She said, “I knew that to be true, but I felt that her drinking was a symptom of something else. So while my mother was in the hospital in a coma, I wrote and wrote and wrote, trying to remember everything about my mother—my own memories, things she had said about herself, things her friends had said about her. I was trying to figure out who my mother was because I’m so much like her, and I wanted to figure out where she went wrong and what happened that ended in her dying so young.”In her essay, my granddaughter came to the conclusion that her mother had a fixed idea of herself as being a certain way. And one of my granddaughter’s conclusions was that we’re changing all the time; everything about us is always changing. My granddaughter said, “When you hold a fixed idea of yourself, you have to leave out all the parts that you find boring, embarrassing, difficult, or sad. You leave out the emotions you don’t want to feel. And then when you do that, when you leave out all those parts, when those parts are not acceptable, then it eats away at you underneath. These unacknowledged parts are like a hum in the background that’s eating away at you, and you have to find an escape to get away from that. And my mother’s escape was alcohol.”In order for us to be fully present, to experience life fully, we need to acknowledge and accept all our emotions and all parts of ourselves—the embarrassing parts as well as our anger, our rage, our jealousy, our envy, our self-pity, and all these chaotic emotions that sweep us away. Looking for an exit from experiencing the full range of our humanity leads to all kinds of pain and suffering. Meditation gives us the opportunity to experience our emotions naked and fresh, free from the labels of “right” and “wrong,” “should” and “shouldn’t.”~Pema Chodron
The Forest Monastery of Ajahn Chah
Enjoy this BBC Open University documentary about the life of monks in a Buddhist monastery in the Forest Tradition of Thailand. An excellent introduction to the thought and practices of one of the oldest surviving traditions of Buddhism.Chah Subhaddo (Chao Khun Bodhinyana Thera) was an influential teacher of the Buddhadhamma and a founder of two major monasteries in the Thai Forest Tradition.Respected and loved in his own country as a man of great wisdom, he was also instrumental in establishing Theravada Buddhism in the West. Beginning in 1979 with the founding of Cittaviveka (commonly known as Chithurst Buddhist Monastery) in the United Kingdom, the Thai Forest Tradition of Ajahn Chah has spread throughout Europe, the United States and the British Commonwealth. The dhamma talks of Ajahn Chah have been recorded, transcribed and translated into several languages.More than one million people, including the Thai royal family, attended Ajahn Chah's funeral in 1992. He left behind a legacy of dhamma talks, students, and monasteries.
I'm Too Lazy to Meditate by Mingyur Rinpoche
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBczctqJHq0
Mingyur Rinpoche talks about being too lazy to meditate.Don't try too hard.
Watch: Ram Dass & Chogyam Trungpa
Chogyam Trungpa calls up Ram Dass to the stage during a lecture. Some funny moments ensue.
Shunryu Suzuki Roshi - Sound and Noise
Shunryu Suzuki (1904-1971) was a Sōtō Zen monk and teacher who helped popularize Zen Buddhism in the United States, and is renowned for founding the first Buddhist monastery outside Asia (Tassajara Zen Mountain Center). Suzuki founded San Francisco Zen Center, which along with its affiliate temples, comprises one of the most influential Zen organizations in the United States. A book of his teachings, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, is one of the most popular books on Zen and Buddhism in the West.