Archive for the 'world events / politics' Category
August 4, 2008
vegetarian #101
By being a vegetarian you are not only helping your body but you also help the environment by reducing pollution created from animal agriculture. Also, you may appreciate your healthy meals even more knowing that no animals suffered along the way.
There are literally hundreds of great reasons to green with your diet but here are our: top 10.
TOP #10 Reasons to go VEGETARIAN:
1. Live Longer
A study from the Loma Linda University has found that vegetarians live about seven years longer, and vegans live about 15 years longer than meat eaters. These studies are further supported by the Chinese Health Project (the largest population study on diet and health to date). They found Chinese people who eat the least amount of fat and animal products have the lowest risk of cancer, heart attack and other diseases.Further proof comes from a British research that tracked 6,000 and 5,000 meat eaters for 12 years to find that vegetarians were 40 percent less likely to die from cancer during that time and 20 percent less likely to die from other diseases.
2. You’ll be more “regular.”
Vegetables are the ultimate source for fiber, which pushes waste and bile out of the body. Meat contains no fiber. Studies done at Harvard and Brigham Women’s Hospital found that people who ate a high-fiber diet had a 42 percent lower risk of diverticulitis. People who eat vegetable rich diets also tend to have fewer incidences of constipation, hemorrhoids and spastic colon.3. Have a good heart
Fruits and vegetables are full of antioxidant nutrients that protect the heart and its arteries. Plus, produce contains no saturated fat or cholesterol.
Cholesterol levels for vegetarians are 14 percent lower than meat eaters. American diet that’s filled with saturated fats and cholestrol from meat and dairy has made cardiovascular disease the number one killer in the United States.4. You’ll avoid toxic chemicals.
95 percent of pesticide residue in our diet comes from meat, fish and dairy products (according to EPA estimates). Fish, in particular, contain carcinogens (PCBs, DDT) and heavy metals (mercury, arsenic; lead, cadmium) that cannot be removed through cooking or freezing. Meat and dairy products are also laced with steroids and hormones.5. You’ll give your body a spring cleaning.
Fruit and vegetable juices contain phytochemicals that help us detox naturally.
Giving up meat helps rid the body of toxins (environmental pollutants, pesticides, preservatives) that overload our systems and cause illness.6. You Will Look Better, Leaner, And Healthy
On average, vegetarians are leaner than meat eaters.
Vegetarian diets are much lower in calories than the standard American diet.
Vegetarians are also less likely to suffer from weight-related disorders like heart disease, stroke and diabetes.7. Think of The Money You Will Save
Replacing meat, chicken and fish with vegetables and fruits is estimated to cut food bills by an average of $4,000 a year.8. Help the environment
You’ll help reduce waste and air pollution. Circle 4 Farms in Milford, Utah, which raises 2.5 million pigs every year, creates more waste than the entire city of Los Angeles. And this is just one farm. Each year, the nation’s factory farms, collectively produce 2 billion tons of manure, a substance that’s rated by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as one of the country’s top 10 pollutants. And that’s not even counting the methane gas released by cows, pigs and poultry (which contributes to the greenhouse effect); the ammonia gases from urine; poison gases that emanate from manure lagoons; toxic chemicals from pesticides; and exhaust from farm equipment used to raise feed for animals.9. More Efficient
Right now, 72 percent of all grain produced in the United States is fed to animals raised for slaughter. It takes 15 pounds of feed to get one pound of meat. But if the grain used to feed animals to be slaughtered were given directly to people, there’d be enough food to feed the entire planet. In addition, using land for animal agriculture is inefficient in terms of maximizing food production. According to the journal Soil and Water, one acre of land could produce 50,000 pounds of tomatoes, 40,000 pounds of potatoes, 30,000 pounds of carrots or just 250 pounds of beef.10. Its The Right Thing To Do
“Our task must be to free ourselves… by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty. Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances of survival for life on earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.”-
Albert Einstein
Consuming more fresh fruits, vegetables, and grains are the best source for living a healthy, more enjoyable life.
In addition former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop has said bad eating habits are the main cause of 70 percent American deaths.
Did you know 22 million animals are slaughtered to support the American appetite for meat?
It’s a great feeling to finish a health meal knowing that no beings have suffered!
n a m a s t e ~
Vegan PhilosophyThe practice of non-violence
I’ve decided to return to the Vegan Lifestyle of my youth~
{so far for almost a month… will see if i am able to maintain my practice through atleast december ;)}
The philosophy of Vegan Values:
Comments(1)August 2, 2008
Darfur
buddhist take on practicing veganism
“It is my belief that one cannot be Mindful~
fully in the moment; and partake in the eating of flesh.”jlr
c o m m e n t s w e l c o m e ~
July 30, 2008
“I Have Arrived, I Am Home” ~ “My destination is in each step…”
An Israeli soldier asks about the use of force
during a question and answer session with: Thich Nhat Hanh
[November 29th, 2001]
Question: I want to ask about force. I was, and still am, in the Israeli army. At times we need to use force to prevent an act that will cause suffering, and that force causes suffering to another person. My question is, can force be used?
Thây: If you have understanding and compassion in yourself, then, what we call military force, may help to prevent something, to achieve something. But that shouldn’t prevent us from seeing that there are other kinds of force that may be even more powerful.The spiritual force is also very powerful.
The spiritual, the social, the educational - they are all forces, and much safer to use. Because we have not been trained to use these forces, we only think of using military force.
Suppose there are two people, both of them full of anger, misunderstanding, and hatred…
How can these two people talk to each other, even if they are negotiating for peace? That is the main problem: you cannot bring people together to sit around a table and discuss peace if there is no peace inside of them.
You have to first help them to calm down and begin to see clearly that we,
as well as the other people, suffer.
We should have compassion for ourselves as well as for them and their children. This is possible.
As human beings we have suffered. And we have the capacity to understand the suffering of other people.
The spiritual and educational dimensions can be very powerful,
and we should use them as instruments,
as tools for peace.
Suppose you live in a quarter where dozens of Palestinians live peacefully with Israelis. You don’t have any problems. You share the same environment, you can go shopping in the same place, you can ride on the same bus - you enjoy. You don’t see your differences as obstacles, but as enriching. You are an Israeli and she is a Palestinian and you meet each other in the marketplace and you smile to each other. How beautiful, how wonderful. You help her and she helps you. That image should be seen by other Palestinians and Israelis. If you are a writer you can bring that image to many people outside of your group. If you are a filmmaker, why don’t you offer the image of peaceful coexistence to the world? That is very powerful -
~ more powerful than a bomb, a rocket, or a gun, and that makes people believe that peace is possible.
If you have enough energy of understanding and peace inside of you, then this kind of educational work can be very powerful…
and you won’t have to think of the army and of guns anymore.
If the army knows how to: p r a c t i c e,
it will know how to act in such a way as to not cause harm…
The army can rescue people; the army can guarantee peace and order. It is like a knife. You can use a knife to kill or you can use a knife to chop vegetables. It is possible for soldiers to practice nonviolence and understanding. We don’t exclude them from our practice, from our Sangha. We don’t say, “You are a soldier, you cannot come into our meditation hall.” In fact, you need to come into the meditation hall in order to know how to better use the army. So, please don’t limit your question to such a limited area.
Make your question broad - embrace the whole situation, because everything is linked to everything else.
There are many things we can do today to extend our understanding, compassion, and peace, because every bit of it is useful, is gold.
When you take a step, if you can enjoy that step, if your step can bring you more stability and freedom, then you are serving the world. It is with that kind of peace and stability that you can serve.
If you don’t have the qualities of stability, peace, and freedom inside of you, then no matter what you do, you cannot help the world.
It is not about “doing”
[something],
it’s about BEING.
“Being” peace, “being” hope, “being” solid.
Every action will come out of that, because peace, stability, and freedom always seek a way to express themselves in action.
That is the spiritual dimension of our reality.
We need that spiritual dimension to rescue us so that we don’t think only in terms of military force as a means to solve the problem and uproot terrorism. How can you uproot terrorism with military force? The military doesn’t know where terrorism is. They cannot locate terrorism - terrorism is in the heart.
The more military force you use; then the more terrorists you create…
in your own country and in other countries as well.
The basic issue is our practice of peace, our practice of looking deeply.
First of all, we need to allow ourselves to calm down.
Without tranquility and serenity, our emotions, our anger, and our despair will not go away. And we will not be able to look and see the nature of reality.
Calming down, becoming serene is the first step of meditation.
The second step is to look deeply, to understand.
Out of understanding comes compassion.
And from this foundation of understanding and compassion you will be able to see what you can do and what you should refrain from doing. That is spoken in terms of meditation. In that respect, everyone has to practice meditation - the politicians, the military, the businessman.
All of us have to practice calming down and looking deeply.
Follow-up Question: If a terrorist walks into a restaurant with a bomb on him and I can stop him, the military can stop him, but only by killing him; I don’t have time to have compassion. It could be an act of hate and anger to shoot him, but it will stop him from blowing up that restaurant with women and children and people who are my people.
Thây: Of course it is very difficult to not get angry when they are killing your wife, your husband, or your children. It is very difficult to not get angry. That person is acting out of anger, and we are retaliating also out of anger. So there is not much difference between the two of us. That is the first element.
The second element is: why do we have to wait until the situation presents itself to us as an emergency before we act, dealing only with the immediate circumstance?
Of course you have to act rapidly in such an emergency situation. But what if we are not in an emergency situation? We can wait for an emergency situation to arise or we can do something in order to prevent such a thing from happening. Our tendency is to not do anything until the worst happens. While we have the time, we do not know how to use that time to practice peace and prevent war. We just allow ourselves to be indulged in forgetfulness and sense pleasures. We do not do the things that have the power to prevent such emergency situations from happening.
The third element is that when things like this happen, it is because there is a deep-seated cause, not only in the present moment but also in the past. This is, because that is. Nothing happens like that without a cause. You kill me, I kill you. But the fact that you are killing me and I am killing you back has its roots in the past and will have an effect on the future. Our children will say, “You killed my grandfather, now I have to kill you.” That can go on for a long time.
In the past our fathers and our grandfathers may not have been very mindful and may have said things, may have done things that have sown seeds of war. And their grandfathers also said things and did things, planting seeds of war. And now our generation has a choice. Do we want to do better than our grandfathers or do we want to repeat exactly what they did?
That is the legacy we will leave for our children and grandchildren.
Of course in a situation of great emergency you have to do everything you can to prevent killing. And yet, there are ways to do it that will cause less harm. If you have some compassion and understanding, the way you do it can be very different. Bring the dimension of the human heart into it; help the military strategists to have a human heart. It’s the least we can do. Do we teach the military to conduct a military operation with a human heart? Is that a reality in the army, in military schools? They teach us how to kill as many people as possible and as quickly as possible, but they do not teach us how to kill someone with compassion.
In one of his past lives, it seems that the Buddha was a passenger on a boat that was overtaken by pirates, and he killed one of them while trying to protect the people on the boat. But that was in an earlier life of the Buddha, before he was an awakened being. If the true Buddha were there he may have had other means; he may have had enough wisdom to find a better way so that the life of the pirate could have been spared. Because life after life, the Buddha made progress. You are the afterlife of your grandfatherv [grandmother]; you must have learned something over the past three generations. If you don’t have more compassion and understanding than he did, then you have not properly continued on after your grandfather. Because with compassion and understanding we can do better, we can cause less harm and create more peace.
We cannot expect to achieve 100 percent peace right away - our degree of understanding and love is not yet deep enough. But in every situation, urgent or not, the elements of understanding and compassion can play a role. When a gangster is trying to beat and kill, of course you have to lock him up so he will not cause more harm. But you can lock him up angrily, with a lot of hate, or you can lock him up with compassion and with the idea that we should do something to help him. You have to teach the prison guards how to look at the prisoners with compassionate eyes. Teach them how to treat the prisoners with tenderness so they will suffer less in prison, so we can better help them. Do we train them to look at prisoners with eyes of compassion? A prisoner has killed; a prisoner has destroyed. Maybe he was raised in such a way that killing and destruction were natural for him, and so he is a victim of society, of his education. If as a prison guard, you look and see in that way, then you will have compassion, understanding, and you will treat your prisoner with more gentleness. That helps him and that helps you. Help him to become a better person, and help yourself to be happy by helping people in difficulty. That is the principle.
We should not focus only on short-term action. Again, we have to look with the eyes of the Buddha. We must train ourselves to look at things with a broad perspective and not just concentrate on the immediacy of the problem. Our lives are for that, and the lives of our children will be for that, because we are a continuation of each other. We build synagogues and mosques in order to have a place to sit down and do that - to look deeply, so that our actions will not only be motivated by desire, greed, or anger. We have a chance to sit in the mosque or synagogue for a long time, and in that time our compassion and understanding should grow. And then out there we will know how to act in a better way, for the cause of peace.
As a soldier you can be compassionate. You can be loving and your gun can be helpful. At times you may not have to use your gun. It is like a knife that is used to cut vegetables. You can be a Bodhisattva as a soldier or as a commander-in-chief of the army.
The question is whether you have understanding and compassion in your heart.
That is the question.
Excerpt reprinted with permission from:
“ I Have Arrived, I Am Home ” by Thich Nhat Hanh [Parallax Press]
Realize
In relationships~
are you the one trying to “change” the boyfriend/girlfriend?Or do you accept that “they” are just a mirror of who YOU are being?
Do you try and get your job just the way you want it?
Do you try and control the people you work with in order to “manage” them?
Berkerlium asked me about my attraction
to the art of my current chosen profession.
So, I will share this with you, too.
My table-side thoughts go to:
“Don’t try and “control” the poker table…. that would be impossible…”~ “instead, realize that the entire felt~side experience is just a reflection of who you are being while you sit there.”
Don’t try and “control” what you eat~
either, for that matter.
The world you see and experience is just a reflection
of who
you are
BEING
in the present moment.
c o m m e n t s
w e l c o m e
July 28, 2008
Precepts / Mindfulness Trainings
The 5 Precepts
The precepts are a condensed form of Buddhist ethical practice.The precepts are often compared with the ten commandments of Christianity, however, the precepts are different in two respects:
First, they are to be taken as recommendations, not commandments:
This means the individual is encouraged to use his/her own intelligence~
to apply these rules in the best possible way.Second, it is the spirit of the precepts -not the text- that counts, hence, the guidelines for ethical conduct must be seen in the larger context of:
The Eightfold Path.The first five precepts are mandatory for every Buddhist~
{although the fifth precept is often not observed, because it bans the consumption of alcohol}
Precepts numbers six to ten are laid out for those in preparation for monastic life and for devoted lay people unattached to families. The eight precepts put together number eight and nine and omit the tenth. Lay people may observe the eight precepts on Buddhist festival days. Ordained Theravada monks undertake no less than 227 precepts, which are not listed here.I undertake to observe the precept to:
abstain from
…harming living beings.
…taking things not freely given.
…sexual misconduct.
…false speech.
…intoxicating drinks and drugs causing heedlessness.
…taking untimely meals.
…dancing, singing, music and watching grotesque mime.
…use of garlands, perfumes and personal adornment.
…use of high seats.
…accepting gold or silver.
(adapted from The Word of the Buddha, Niyamatolika, The Buddhist Publication Society, 1971, p xii)The above phrasing of the precepts is very concise and leaves much open to interpretation.
One might ask, for example, what exactly constitutes false speech, what are untimely meals, what constitutes sexual misconduct, or whether a glass of wine causes heedlessness. And, the grotesque mime watching of the seventh precept sounds perhaps a bit outdated. The Buddhist master Thich Nath Hanh has formulated The Five Mindfulness Trainings, which are an adaptation of the first five Buddhist precepts. These are practised by Buddhists of the Lam Te Dhyana school. By virtue of their sensible phrasing and their relevance to modern lifestyle, these “trainings” provide a valuable foundation of ethics for all of humanity.
The Five Mindfulness Trainings
(according to: Thich Nath Hanh, www.plumvillage.org)-First Training-
Aware of the suffering caused by the destruction of life~
I am committed to cultivating compassion and learning ways to protect the lives of people, animals, plants, and minerals. I am determined not to kill, not to let others kill, and not to condone any act of killing in the world, in my thinking, and in my way of life.-Second Training-
Aware of the suffering caused by exploitation, social injustice, stealing, and oppression~
I am committed to cultivate loving kindness and learn ways to work for the well-being of people, animals, plants, and minerals. I am committed to practice generosity by sharing my time, energy, and material resources with those who are in real need. I am determined not to steal and not to possess anything that should belong to others. I will respect the property of others, but I will prevent others from profiting from human suffering or the suffering of other species on Earth.
-Third Training-
Aware of the suffering caused by sexual misconduct~
I am committed to cultivate responsibility and learn ways to protect the safety and integrity of individuals, couples, families, and society. I am determined not to engage in sexual relations without love and a long-term commitment. To preserve the happiness of myself and others, I am determined to respect my commitments and the commitments of others. I will do everything in my power to protect children from sexual abuse and to prevent couples and families from being broken by sexual misconduct.-Fourth Training-
Aware of the suffering caused by unmindful speech and the inability to listen to others~
I am committed to cultivate loving speech and deep listening in order to bring joy and happiness to others and relieve others of their suffering. Knowing that words can create happiness or suffering, I am committed to learn to speak truthfully, with words that inspire self-confidence, joy, and hope. I am determined not to spread news that I do not know to be certain and not to criticise or condemn things of which I am not sure. I will refrain from uttering words that can cause division or discord, or that can cause the family or the community to break. I will make all efforts to reconcile and resolve all conflicts, however small.-Fifth Training-
Aware of the suffering caused by unmindful consumption~
I am committed to cultivate good health, both physical and mental, for myself, my family, and my society by practising mindful eating, drinking, and consuming. I am committed to ingest only items that preserve peace, well-being, and joy in my body, in my consciousness, and in the collective body and consciousness of my family and society. I am determined not to use alcohol or any other intoxicant or to ingest foods or other items that contain toxins, such as certain TV programs, magazines, books, films, and conversations.
I am aware that to damage my body or my consciousness with these poisons is to betray my ancestors, my parents, my society, and future generations.
I will work to transform violence, fear, anger, and confusion in myself and in society by practising a diet for myself and for society. I understand that a proper diet is crucial for self-transformation and for the transformation of society.
Buddhism: The 5 Precepts / The 5 Mindfulness Trainings
Buddhism…
About Buddhism~
The greatest achievement is selflessness.
The greatest worth is self-mastery.
The greatest quality is seeking to serve others.
The greatest precept is continual awareness.
The greatest medicine is the emptiness of everything.
The greatest action is not conforming with the worlds ways.
The greatest magic is transmuting the passions.
The greatest generosity is non-attachment.
The greatest goodness is a peaceful mind.
The greatest patience is humility.
The greatest effort is not concerned with results.
The greatest meditation is a mind that lets go.
The greatest wisdom is seeing through appearances.
11th century Tibetan Buddhist master: Atisha
Buddhism / 4 Noble Truths
Four Noble Truths
1. Life means suffering.
To live means to suffer,
…because the human nature is not perfect and neither is the world we live in.
During our lifetime, we inevitably have to:
a) endure: physical suffering such as: pain, sickness, injury, tiredness, old age, and eventually death; and we have to:
b) endure psychological suffering like sadness, fear, frustration, disappointment, and depression.
Although there are different degrees of suffering and there are also positive experiences in life that we perceive as the opposite of suffering, such as ease, comfort and happiness, life in its totality is imperfect and incomplete, because our world is subject to impermanence. This means we are never able to keep permanently what we strive for, and~
just as happy moments pass by,
we ourselves
and our loved ones
will pass away one day,
too.
2. The origin of suffering is attachment.
The origin of suffering is attachment to transient things and the ignorance thereof.
Transient things do not only include the physical objects that surround us, but also ideas,
and;
in a greater sense~ all objects of our perception.
Ignorance is: the lack of understanding of how our mind is attached to impermanent things.The reasons for suffering are desire, passion, ardour, pursuit of wealth and prestige, striving for fame and popularity, or in short: craving and clinging. Because the objects of our attachment are transient, their loss is inevitable, thus suffering will necessarily follow.
Objects of attachment also include the idea of a “self” which is a delusion, because there is no abiding self.What we call “self” is just an imagined entity,
and we are merely a part
of the ceaseless becoming
of the universe.
3. The cessation of suffering is attainable.
The cessation of suffering can be attained through nirodha.
Nirodha means the unmaking of sensual craving and conceptual attachment.
The third noble truth expresses the idea that:
suffering can be ended by attaining dispassion.Nirodha extinguishes all forms of clinging and attachment.
This means that suffering can be overcome through human activity, simply by removing the cause of suffering. Attaining and perfecting dispassion is a process of many levels that ultimately results in the state of Nirvana. Nirvana means freedom from all worries, troubles, complexes, fabrications and ideas. Nirvana is not comprehensible for those who have not attained it.
4. The path to the cessation of suffering: There is a path to the end of suffering.
[A gradual path of self-improvement, which is described more detailed in:
the Eightfold Path.]It is the middle way between the two extremes of:
a) excessive self-indulgence (hedonism)
and
b) excessive self-mortification (asceticism);
~and it leads to the end of the cycle of rebirth.
The latter quality discerns it from other paths which are merely “wandering on the wheel of becoming“, because these do not have a final object. The path to the end of suffering can extend over many lifetimes, throughout which every individual rebirth is subject to karmic conditioning: Craving, ignorance, delusions, and its effects will disappear gradually, as progress is made on the path.
July 27, 2008
Non-Attachment… and the inability to: suffer
One of the most important teachings of Zen Buddhism is: non-attachment.
The teaching of non-attachment may be easy to understand, but it is not easy to practice. Nevertheless, it is very essential to cultivate non-attachment if we are to live a serene and happy life in a world of constant change ; for this reason it is introduced here:
Our world is a world of: desire.
Every living being comes forth from desire and endures as a combination of desires.
We are born from the desire between of our father and mother.
Then, when we emerge into this world, we become infatuated with many things, and become ourselves well-springs of desire.
Through desire we give rise to attachments.
For every desire there is a corresponding attachment, namely, to the object of desire. For example, we are most conspicuously attached to our bodies. When someone threatens the body, we grow anxious and try to protect it. We relish physical comforts and the enjoyment of the senses. Thus, we are strongly attached to the body. But if we consider this attachment, we will see that it is a potential source of suffering. For the body is constantly changing. We wish we could remain alive forever, but moment after moment the body is passing from youth to old age, from life to death. We may be happy when we are young and strong, but we contemplate sickness, old age and the ever present threat of death, anxiety overwhelms us. Thus, we seek to elude the inevitable by evading the thought of it.
The lust for life and fear of death are forms of attachment.We are attached not only to our bodies but also to our possessions. We continually weave a net of clinging around our clothes, or car, our house and our wealth. We loath to part with these things and always try to accumulate more of them. We are also attached to memories concerning the past or anticipations of the future. Many people write diaries {blogs} because they cannot part with their experiences, but wish to preserve them in such a form that they can always recollect them. When explorer climb a high mountain peak, what do they do ? They leave their name on a rock trees. When the astronauts landed on the moon, they left their footprints ant the American flag. These attachments are based on the egocentric point of view, with its offspring, the notions of ‘me‘ and ‘mine‘.
Even spiritual experiences may become objects of attachment.
Through meditation we may gain some unusual experience or even satori ; then we become attached to these attainments.
This is another form of attachment.
Zen Buddhism teaches us to extinguish attachment in order that we may discover the state of absolute freedom which is rightfully ours. The path to freedom is difficult to follow, but if we have sufficient determination, we can do it.The Zen teaching of non-attachment is very similar to the teaching of Taoism.
The Tao Te Ching an ancient Taoist classic, says :“When the sage walks, he leaves no footprints behind.”
What does this mean ? It does not mean that when the Taoist sage goes for a walk one would never be able to find the imprints of his feet on the ground. The sage is human like us, and so he has footprints. What the statement means is that: in his journey through life the sage leaves no traces of desire and attachment clinging to him as he lives from moment to moment.
Life is flowing; always changing~
and the sage never looks back to the moment which has sped by, nor does he look forward to the moment which lies ahead. Rather, he lives in the present, flowing along in harmony with the rhythm of life, appreciating each moment for what it is worth and allowing it to pass on quickly to be replaced by the next.The Greek philosopher Heraclitus said:
“Nobody can step into the same river twice”.
We may think that the river we step into tomorrow is the same river we stepped into today, but this is just an illusion. The river is always flowing along, so we can never step into the exact same water twice.
Another saying famous in the West holds :”Nobody can say that today I live, and tomorrow I will live.”
In our minds we may have plans not only for tomorrow but for next year, and for ten years in the future, but no one can be absolutely certain that he will even live through the night. Recognizing the radical impermanence of life, Zen Buddhism suggests that we should not be too strongly attached to life, for if we are, we will find ourselves buffeted against the sharp rocks of change. Instead of living in the past and future, we should learn to live in the present as fully as possible.
This moment, at least, we are alive, while we cannot be sure we will be alive tomorrow.The secret of non-attachment is revealed in the philosophy of Chuang-Tzu, the great Taoist sage.
According to Chuang-Tzu, life and death are two sides of the same coin, so there is no reason to be attached to life and afraid of death.
As Chuang-Tzu says in a poem :
“There is the globe,
The foundation of my bodily existence.
It wears me out with work and duties,
It gives me rest in old age,
It gives me peace in death.
For the One who supplied me with what I needed in life,
Will also give me what I need in death.”When Zhuang-Tzu’s wife died, his friend the philosopher Hui Shih went to his house to console him and found him not weeping and wailing as one might aspect, but laughing and singing. Asked how he could be so ungrateful to his wife, the sage replied :
“When she has just died, I could not help being affected. Soon, however, I examined the matter from the very beginning. At the very beginning, she was not living, having no form, not even substance. But somehow or rather, there was then her substance, then her form and then her life. Now by a further change, she has died. The whole process is like the sequence of the four seasons - spring, summer, autumn and winter. While she is thus lying in the great mansion of the universe, for me to go about weeping and wailing would be to proclaim myself ignorant of the natural laws. Therefore I stop.”
From this story we learn that the key to happiness is: non-attachment, and
the secret of non-attachment is: right understanding.If we cling to the desire for things to be permanent,
then we will develop strong attachments,
and because of attachment?
we will suffer.This is the second of the Four Noble Truths taught by the Buddha in the first sermon after his Enlightenment :
“All suffering arises from desire.”As a consequence,
if we recognize rightly that all phenomena are subject to change and transformation, then there will be no room in our hearts for fear and worry.
We can accept anything, even death, with a peaceful, cheerful mind.
The accomplished Zen man and woman can face all the vicissitudes of life and death without fear.
There are some Zen masters who know the time of their death several days in advance~
When their time for departure comes, they gather their disciples together, give them final instructions and a gatha embodying the essence of their teaching and then quietly pass away, often sitting in the lotus posture.
One Vietnamese Zen master named Tran-Nhan-Ton left the following gatha for his disciples at the time of his death :“All things have no beginning;
All things are without cessation;
If you understand this,
All the Buddhas are there.
So how can there be any coming and going?”The spirit of non-attachment is beautifully illustrated by the life of the life of the Buddha.
When he was still a prince, married to a lovely wife and the heir to his father’s throne, what did he do ? He renounced his family, wealth and power and fled to the mountains to meditate upon the way of truth.
After his Enlightenment, the Buddha continued to exhibit the attitude of non-attachment.
Whereas most of the founders of other religions have claimed themselves to be the way, the light and the truth, the Buddha claimed to be the man who points the way. The Buddha is the wayfarer, the supremely enlightened guide along the path leading to the truth, but he does not claim to be himself the path of the truth. This is a very humble attitude, is it not ? Since it is a man who shows the way, there can be many ways which men may follow. Therefore we find a great deal of freedom and tolerance in Buddhism. The path which is right for one man may not be right for another.
There are 84,000 Dharma-doors that lead into the inner chambers of the Awakened Mind, and every Buddhist is free to practice those Dharma-doors he feels are best suited to himself.
We find in the same spirit that Buddhists are not too attached to their own particular beliefs, even when they accept them with deep faith.
In this respect, they follow the advice of the Buddha, who urged his disciples not to become angry when others spoke critically of his teachings and not to become elated when others spoke in praise of it, but to maintain an equal, open mind in the face of both criticism and praise.For forty-nine years the Buddha wandered over India preaching his doctrine and instructing disciples, yet on the last day of his life he could say : “In these forty-nine years I have not said a single word.”
Why did he say this ? Because he did not want his disciples to become attached to his teaching.
He wanted them to practice the teaching and realize the truth for themselves
~ rather than grasp upon his own verbal and conceptual formulations of the truth.He compared his doctrine to a raft which is used to cross from his shore of ignorance and suffering to the other shore of Enlightenment and Nirvana. The raft is to be used rather than carried around on the head, just as the Dharma is to be practiced and realized rather than merely studied.
In Japanese Buddhism a Buddhist monk is usually called un shui.
Un means cloud
and
shui means water,
so a monk is a: ‘cloud and water’ man.
Why is he called so ? Clouds are fleeting and insubstantial, and water is constantly flowing.
So the Buddhist monk is to be like clouds and water, wandering from place to place to help and to teach people without abiding anywhere permanently. He has no attachment to anything and to no property. In Theravada Buddhism a monk owns just three robes, a bowl, a razor and some small utensils. The purpose of this is to eliminate attachment.The Buddhist sits loose and travels light.
While we may feel that it is possible to own many things without being attached to them, still it is easier to be unattached with few possessions. Therefore, a Buddhist monk is not supposed to own more that what he needs. He is supposed to rise above all attachments, not only to his personal possessions, but to nation and family as well. A Buddhist monk does not think that only a particular group of people related to him by blood is his family or that a particular country is his nation. He regards all sentient beings as his family and every place as his home. He is a universal man devoted to the welfare and the happiness of the whole world.
The role of non-attachment in Zen Buddhism is very far-reaching.
In fact, it may be said that: the aim of Zen is to root out each and every point of attachment until there is not even a speck of dust left for the mind to grasp.
This means that not only such coarse forms of attachment as the passions and desires must be left behind, but also the more subtle threads of intellectual attachment.Even such notions as Buddhahood, Nirvana and Enlightenment must be pulverized and scattered to the winds until only the Void remains, and even that must be cast away.
This is the meaning of the Middle Way ~
the Way that rises above the duality of ‘this‘ and ‘that‘.
As long as one bears the concept of “Nirvana” or “Enlightenment” in mind,
that concept; in and of itself is a barrier to his meditation!
For this reason some Zen masters teach their students :
“When you meditate do not wish to become a Buddha.”
Why do they say this? Because if one wishes to become a Buddha, then he is attached to the notion of Buddhahood.
He makes Buddhahood an object and himself a subject, thereby constructing a false dualism once again.We must let go.
We must let go of everything~
high and low,
exalted and debased,
pure and impure,
existent and non-existent…
and the mind will become calm and pure by itself.From this calm, pure mind we can begin to cultivate the wisdom that will grow into Buddhahood.
When we cease to discriminate between subject and object,
the two become:One
~ and we find that from the beginning our very mind is the Buddha.
All men seek happiness.
It is a universal trait of human nature.
But men differ very much in their views about how happiness is to be achieved.
One Vietnamese Buddhist writer compares happiness to a butterfly. He says :“Happiness is something very beautiful, just like a butterfly. On warm summer days the butterfly darts back and forth above the green grass and the colorful flowers, looking very beautiful. But one must not try to catch it, for when the butterfly is caught in the hand, it becomes no more than an insect.”
This means that we should let happiness come and go just like a butterfly.
When it comes, we should just enjoy it and not try to grasp after it.
And when it goes, we should watch it go calmly and peacefully ; then it will come back again.
If we try to grasp happiness and hold on to it forever, it will die in our hands.
We must let its beauty come and go and enjoy it while it lasts.That is the way of life and the meaning of life too.
This is the way of non-attachment.
METHOD OF PRACTICE
A common method to help the student lessen his attachment is the koan method of Rinzai Zen.
The koan is a philosophical topic given to a Zen student for meditation by the Zen master. It may consist of a single word, a phrase, a sentence or a short passage. A most famous koan is called: “the sound of one hand clapping.” Everybody knows what the sound of two hands clapping is like, but what it the sound of one hand clapping ?
That is the koan.
The student meditates on it until he can hear the sound of one hand clapping.
Many of us have heard the sound of silence. If we can hear that sound, then we can hear the sound of one hand clapping also.
This koan does not stop with hearing of not hearing, but goes further. If we can hear the sound of one hand, why can we hear it, and how can we hear it ?
If not, why not ? Where does the sound come from, and where does it go ? What is the nature of the sound, and what is the nature of the sound, and what is the nature of hearing ?
If their koan is solved, the meditator may consider that he has experienced kensho.
Source : Zen Philosophy, Zen Practice
written by: Ven. Thich Thien An
Dharma Publishing,
College of Oriental Studies, 1975, PP104-112.
create: meaning
“To live is to suffer,
to survive is to find meaning in the suffering”.
R o b e r t a F l a c k