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If we wish to use our life to benefit the world,
then we must become of the world.
– Barry Briggs, ‘Generosity and Transparency‘

Every year, at this time of year, I am re-drawn to, and re-connect with, the religious tradition of my personal and cultural heritage. I am glad of it and I welcome this amazing time to learn from others, because there is so much good stuff in Christianity that I can draw from and which can enliven my Buddhist practice, especially in the central Christmas image of the Nativity.

Because Buddhas are born kings, in palaces, sheltered from suffering, wheras Bodhisattvas, those beings that embody Love and Compassion, can take on any form. Bodhisattvas are closer to us, we can imagine them as shepherds or carpenters, with dirty robes and work-hardened hands, or as a baby born in the toughest of circumstances come to show us how to live.

I went to a carol service this week at the small Anglican church here in Bangkok, and in one of the teachings someone quoted a passage from a writer called Max Lucado setting the Nativity scene, which I later looked up. Lucado writes: “The stable stinks like all stables do. The stench of urine, dung, and sheep reeks pungently in the air. The ground is hard, the hay scarce.”

The beauty of the Christian message is, for me, this very real embodiment of the otherwise abstact notions of Wisdom and Compassion. How else are we to understand these ideas if not in our very lives? Jesus’ birth represents the unfailing possibility of love, kindness, and understanding right where we are. It’s always here, we simply have to wake up. As Max Lucando writes, “Those who missed His Majesty’s arrival that night missed it not because of evil acts or malice; no, they missed it because they simply weren’t looking.”

When is the time for love to be born?
The inn is full on the planet earth
And by greed and pride the sky is torn –
Yet Love still takes the risk of birth.
 – Madeleine L’Engle

Happy Christmas to all you Christians, to all you Buddhists, to all you Bodhisattvas (and that’s all of you) everywhere!
– From everyone at Wake Up and Laugh!

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Links:
Barry Briggs: Generosity and Transparency
Max Lucado: God Came Near

Picture:
The gorgeous image used here, with permission, is by the artist and Pastor John Stuart. His amazing art blog is well worth checking out: http://stushieart.wordpress.com/

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As long as I can remember I’ve believed in our fundamental innate wisdom. It made sense that the Creator would build a self-sufficient organism, endowed with all the elements necessary for its journey through life, including and especially the knowledge for self-realization .

Despite this conviction, however, I have struggled to manifest this wisdom in my own life and for years I have struggled with doubt.  I questioned my own wisdom, in favor of that of others.  I questioned my self-worth, such that I was often led down paths not suited to me. In questioning my character I would reinforced those traits I desired least. Doubt has certainly played a less than beneficial role in my life, although one could argue this point, if it brings me to this place of insight.

The Sakyamuni Buddha and many other wisdom teachers have encouraged us to test their teachings in order to realize our personal Truth.  This admonition would certainly seem to encourage fostering a certain degree of doubt as part of our practice.  Yet the Buddha also warns that there is nothing “more dreadful than the habit of doubt”,  and doubt is listed among the five hindrances that impede successful practice. So where is the balance? When do the questions stop being fuel for our journey and instead become hindrances to advancement.

The answer, I believe, is in the practice of letting go.  We let the questions come and release them into the emptiness that is constant change.  Then we observe what comes and let that go too. Into the emptiness. Into our fundamental mind. We practice listening to our inner Wisdom and applying its teachings in our lives.  This is not an easy practice, I’ve found.  I often find myself questioning the still, small voice and wishing it were a little more earth shattering and perhaps not so small.  This is where we engage our faith and trust in our essential Being, God, Unity.  We trust that the appropriate questions will arise for our particular path and just as surely, the right answers will manifest in us. Daehaeng Sunim calls this true, great questioning.  

“When you wholeheartedly believe in and entrust everything to your foundation, questioning bursts forth.  When you let go again of even these questions, the answer will arise from within”

Doubt opens up a space for exploration, a space of non-grasping where, in the words of Martine Bachelor, author and meditation teacher, we can creatively engage the present moment and let our wisdom blossom. Doubt is ok.  The questions will come.  My practice will be let them go and trust my innate wisdom to take care of me as it has through this and many past lifetimes.

“The Buddha-Dharma is the fruit that has ten thousand flavors, the flower with ten thousand fragrances. It can be said that practitioners are the farmers who raise these fruits and the gardeners who tend these flowers.”
– Seon Master Daehaeng Sunim

I’ve always had a bit of a problem with the Paramitas. Don’t get me wrong, I love the idea of a collection of virtuous practices, each re-enforcing and supporting each other, after all, it is the solid practicality of Buddhism that I’m naturally drawn to. No, my problem (apart from the obvious one of making them manifest in my life) is understanding why those particular ones.

Personally, I’d like to slightly re-write the Paramitas to suit myself and my own particular path and challenges, and I believe that is a legitimate way to treat these tools, to make them entirely and personally your own. But at the same time, it is useful to be able to talk a common language and so I’ll stick to the traditional presentation here. What follows are just some personal reflections.

Dana-Paramita – Giving
Shouldn’t we re-name this? Couldn’t we use a word that points more directly to what exactly our practice, our priority, our major aspiration really is? Giving is lovely, both in terms of giving the Dharma and giving real, solid, necessary material aid, but doesn’t the word ‘Compassion’ better reflect our vows, and the very purpose of giving? While generosity is a wonderful practice, Compassion is the very practice itself.

Sila-Paramita – Precepts
Of course the order of the Paramitas is not so important, after all each reflects and supports the others. But traditionally the perfection of sila, morality, comes second, but surely it is both gate and foundation to this path. It is by taking precepts that one becomes Buddhist, and this remains a practice and a challenge throughout one’s life. However, if we see the first Paramita as ‘Compassion’, then we can see the second as being the foundation of the first.

Ksanti-Paramita – Patience
Sometimes this Paramita is called patience, sometimes endurance or forbearance. Thich Nhat Hanh, in his wonderful commentary on the Lotus Sutra, renames it ‘Inclusiveness’, saying that the practice consists of “continually making your heart bigger and bigger so that it can accept and embrace everything.” For myself, in my own practice, I’d like to add the notion of ‘Gratitude’ to this paramita, something that is not discussed enough in Buddhist circles but something that can transform many otherwise painful situations.

Virya-Paramita – Effort
LIke patience, the name of this Paramita can have some negative overtones, giving rise to the idea that you must constantly push yourself forward, leading to stress and pain. But true diligence, again in the words of Thich Nhat Hanh, “is born from joy”. So why not re-name this Paramita as ‘Joy’ and be done with it? But then again, that might also lead to expectations and disappointments. So I just prefer to call this Paramita ‘Practice’.

Dhyana-Paramita – Meditation
The Paramitas are for every moment of our lives, not just those few grabbed minutes when I remember to sit on my meditation block! So personally I prefer the way that Seon Master Kusan Suryeon, in a marvellous essay on the Paramitas, calls this one the Paramita of Stillness and Stability of Mind. We could call this Paramita ‘Peace’. For myself, though, I’d re-name it ‘Faith’. For me faith in the Buddhas and in our own inherant Buddha-nature is the very bedrock of stability and peace. When faith is there, everything can be let go to it.

Prajna-Paramita – Wisdom
The two wings of Buddhism are Wisdom and Compassion and I love how the Paramitas start with Compassion and come round to meet Wisdom here – with precepts, patience (gratitude), effort (practice), and meditation (peace and faith) forming the body of the practice. Not wisdom as in book-learning (or Sutra-learning) of course, but wisdom as understanding. As Daehaeng Sunim writes, “True wisdom is obtained only through applying and experiencing”.

The Seventh Paramita
That marvellous essay on the Paramitas by Seon Master Kusan Suryeon that I mentioned earlier is called ‘The Seven Paramitas’. Seven because he allocates one practice to each day, with Monday being Dana and Tuesday Sila and so on, and gives Sunday, the seventh day, the seventh Paramita: ‘The Perfection of the Simultaneous Practice of All the Paramitas’. I think that’s a wonderful idea, and if I had to come up with a name for this one, I’d call it ‘Love’.

“By awakening to our ‘True-I’, and through the practice of befitting ourselves and others, let us show kindness to others, accomplish the Path of Bodhisattvahood, and transform this world into a Buddha Land.”
– Seon Master Kusan Suryeon

Link:
Seon Master Kusan Suryeon: The Seven Paramitas – The Right Road

There is an exhibition about Jijang Bodhisattva at the Buddhist Museum at Jogye Temple through January 16. (The museum is beneath the new building in the temple complex, and is closed Mondays.)

I don’t actually know anything about this exhibition!  Its title is:  “Leading beings from the hell realms to enlightenment“. It could be quite interesting, depending upon how they’ve used the older paintings and statues to illustrate how Jijang responds, even in the depths of hell, to those who are suffering.

A few points to note:

• Please try to arrive in plenty of time as the workshop will start at 9am sharp. We will try to finish at 6pm sharp too. Although discussion will almost certainly continue in a nearby restaurant or coffee shop!
• There are no bare feet in Korean temples, it would be much appreciated if those wishing to come will remember to bring socks!
• This is a good chance here in Bangkok to practice meditation in a Zen Buddhist temple with a fully ordained Zen monk in a close and supportive practice group. See you on February 19th!

Links:
Wake Up and Laugh: The Bangkok Seon Club
Therevada-Zen: Chong Go Sunim’s last visit to Bangkok
Littlebang: more details and background

Here Ya-un is writing about the two things that have the most power to lead astray those on the monastic path: money and sexual relationships.  

Actually, he used the word “women” instead of “sexual relationships,” but he was writing for an audience of male monastics. He must have known that nuns would also read or hear this, but perhaps he assumed that in 13th century China, nuns would be less likely to get themselves into trouble over issues of sexual desire. Or perhaps stating the issue outright was seen as vulgar. 

Although Ya-un was writing for monastics, I think this has to be read as a caution about unhindered desire, and in that sense, it applies to everyone.  
 
There is nothing more disruptive to the body than sexual behavior (again, it was “women” here), and nothing more detrimental to spiritual practice than wealth. Thus the Buddha set forth the precepts, and admonished practitioners to avoid wealth and sexual behavior, saying, “If you see beautiful women, treat them as you would poisonous snakes or tigers. If you come near gold or jade, look upon it as you would a rock or piece of wood.” Even if you are completely alone in a dark room, behave as if you were in front of an important guest.

Behave the same whether you are seen or not, and let your speech and thought be in accord. If your mind is pure, all good spirits will protect you. However, if you yearn for women, Heaven [i] will not tolerate you. If good spirits protect you, then you will not experience any difficulties, no matter how harsh the environment. If Heaven does not tolerate you, then you will not be at ease even in an outwardly peaceful place.

                           Greed and lust are the gates of Yama’s hell,
                           purity of mind and action lead to
                           the paradise of Amitabha Buddha
                           Enter hell and you’ll experience a
                           thousand kinds of suffering.
                           Enter liberation
                           and you’ll experience a
                           thousand kinds of happiness.

“When you let go, you can truly live.”
 – Seon Master Daehaeng Sunim

Therevadan Buddhism isn’t my path, but I’ve lived in Bangkok for most of the past ten years and there are certain teachers here and in this tradition I never miss seeing if I can help it. Foremost among them is Ajahn Brahm. Born in London in 1951, ordained in Wat Saket in 1974, disciple of Ajahn Chah for nine years at Wat Nong Pah Pong, and now Spiritual Director of the Buddhist Society of Western Australia, he is rightly famous for the depth of his experience and knowledge and the wonderful way in which he is able to present the Dhamma.

His teaching is seemingly simple, full of stories, warm anecdotes, and his famous, unashamedly oft-repeated, jokes, but his humour serves to present teachings of great depth. I’ve not always agreed with everything I’ve heard from him, but I have benefitted greatly from his wisdom and especially from his skillful instructions regarding practice. I mention all this because he was here again this week and during the workshops I attended he gave a short teaching so profound and eye-opening I just had to share it here.

I don’t know which sutta it comes from, and it doesn’t matter even if it doesn’t, but Ajahn Brahm told a story of how Buddha was wandering along with Ananda when they came across a monk sitting under a tree in meditation. The monk was sat on the ground with a straight back, his hands were folded, and his head and neck at just the right angle. He was deep in meditation and had been for some time. The Buddha turned to Ananda and said “I’m worried about that monk.”

A few minutes later they came across another monk sitting under a tree in meditation. He was on a comfy cushion, his back was bent forward and he’d fallen asleep. Every now and then he’d wake up only to nod off again. He was even snoring. The Buddha turned to Ananda and said “this monk I’m not worried about at all, he’s doing just fine.”

The point, of course, is about letting go. With his perfect posture and iron will, the first monk had turned meditation into a competitive sport, even if the only person he was competing against was himself. He wasn’t abandoning the ego, he was building it. Ajahn Brahm talked about a friend of his in Wat Nong Pah Pong years ago who was admired for his diligence and discipline, sitting upright while others would be half asleep with heads almost on the floor. Eventually the friend disrobed, the whole experience of monkhood had been, he discovered, an exercise in ego, nothing but a constant struggle.

The second monk, the one the Buddha wasn’t worried about, had the sense to relax. If he nodded off, then he nodded off, no big deal. He was able to let go, let go of his need for perfection, and let go of the struggle. Even more, he was able to trust that things would be just fine without his striving and without his perfection. It reminded me of  Daehaeng Kun Sunim’s comments on practice. Specific regimens, she says, will come to a dead end, but “if you keep letting go and entrusting, and experiencing the results of this, then the path that seemed narrow in the beginning will gradually widen, and in the end will become a great avenue and gateway to the truth.”

Ajahn Brahm talks about trying to control your mind and thoughts, trying to control anything in fact, as being like a farmer holding onto a rope trying to control a buffalo as it runs away. The rope can get twisted round your fingers and what will happen next? The farmer will lose his fingers. Crazy farmer, all he gets is pain and suffering, and in any case buffalos never go far. If the farmer had just waited a few minutes he could have just walked up to the buffalo and led it wherever he wanted to go.

“If you know how to let go and be at peace, you know everything you need to know about living in the world.”
 – Ajahn Brahm, ‘Practising In The World’.

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Links:
Ajahn Brahm’s Website
Ajahn Brahmavamso, ‘Practising In The World’
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 Here is another question from Find the Treasure Within:
 
 
My life has been very ordinary, but I’ve been fortunate in many respects. My wife and I get along well, and my children are happy and well-adjusted. Also, my work has been going smoothly. Nevertheless, I sometimes feel empty, like something is missing. Why do I feel like this, even though everything in my life seems to be going well?

 
Daehaeng Kun Sunim:  A wife, a lover, children, money, fame – none of those things have the power to make you feel complete. Only by returning inward to your true self, your foundation, can you become complete. 
 
However, many people are afraid of truly facing themselves. So they look for something outside, wandering around rather than looking within themselves. This is how they deceive themselves. As long as you deceive yourself like this, you can never know true peace, nor will the empty feeling go away — because both are caused by not knowing your true self. When you carefully observe your mind and live your life in touch with this inner mind, you’ll realize that peace is within you. However, if you don’t sincerely face yourself, you can never be truly free of this empty feeling, even if you achieve all of your goals such as having power, money, honor, and love. This applies to everyone. 
 
The more praise, the more pleasure you receive from outside of yourself, the deeper the emptiness will become. Then, as many people do, you may look around outside of yourself even more, searching for the cause or for something that will get rid of the emptiness, without realizing that both the cause and the cure are inside of you. Long ago, a poet left home looking for signs of spring. He searched everywhere, but was unsuccessful. However, upon returning home, he saw blossoms on the apricot tree in his courtyard. 
 
If you see the genuine, true self that’s within you, you will know true peace of mind and the feeling of emptiness will disappear. Yet, because this inner nature is truth itself, don’t think for a moment that things such as force, tricks, or lies can work there. So stop trying to use such deceit to find your true self. People often try to endure the hardships they face with the hope that somehow things will be better tomorrow or at some other place. However, these kinds of thoughts are like delusions if you don’t know about your inner self. They can’t help you for long.

Therefore, please, face yourself honestly. Discover the great, unimaginable “me” that’s already within you. Everything in the world – joy, sorrow, happiness, misery, and emptiness – comes from you; it is all within you. Because everything arises from you, you are the only one who can truly solve all of those issues. This is how it is. So entrust everything to your inner self. Let go of everything to your true self with firm faith, and observe how things work together inseparably. This is the inner path, which teaches you to see all things as not different from yourself, and which shows you that inherently there is no division between “you” and “me.” 

Even offering three hundred bowls of food three times a day does not match the spiritual merit gained in one moment of love.
– Nagarjuna

One of the things that I adore most about Christianity is how love is at its very centre. Jesus summed up his message and teaching in the commandments to love God, to love you neighbour (and he talked a lot about just who your neighbour is) and to love yourself (Matthew 22:36-40), and Paul, the first great leader of the early church, placed love at the very pinnacle of Christian life, even above faith (1 Corinthians 13:13).

I wonder if love’s being so central to Christianity explains why the word is so rarely used by many Buddhist writers writing in English. After all there is a tendency, especially in many of the Buddhist blogs and articles I come across, to want to make clear distinctions between Buddhism, the adopted religion of the writer, and Christianity, often the religion left behind.

But not all Buddhist teachers are shy of the word, and two that come instantly to mind are my own root teacher Seon Master Daehaeng Sunim, and another Zen Master, Thich Nhat Hahn. Thich Nhat Hahn writes: “Do we need to love our teacher? Do we need to love our disciples? Do we need to love our Dharma brothers and sisters in order to succeed in our practice? The answer is, yes.”

But this imperative to love is not just about relations in the Sangha as a means of travelling along the path, it’s also about living in accord with the precepts and thus in harmony with the entire world: “Once love is in your heart you don’t have to do anything, you can practice the mindfulness trainings perfectly, very easily, without any struggle at all.”

Daehaeng Sunim is even more direct and goes even further in her call to love, sounding not a little unlike a certain well-known Galilean teacher from a couple of thousand years ago. “Love each other” she writes, “share each other’s burdens, and share what you have with others. This kind of love is more than enough to take care of everything in the world.”

Too often, to my mind, Buddhist writers stick to the term ‘compassion’, a kind of love-lite. Love is earthy, real, it’s based on flesh and blood and not just a nice notion. “The Buddha’s love and compassion and parents’ love and compassion for their children” Kun Sunim writes, “are both the same fundamental love.” I think there is a reason that in the four immesurables, Brahmavihara, love comes first and is different to compassion.

As loving-kindness it’s there in the Pali, most famously in the Metta Sutta (“Just as a mother would protect her only child with her life, even so let one cultivate a boundless love towards all beings”), and in the devotional texts too. The Thich Nhat Hanh quotes in this post, for example, come from his commentary on the Lotus Sutra (from which he thinks the most beautiful sentence is ‘The bodhisattva regards all beings with the eyes of love’), and the link between love and the Pure Land is obvious.

It’s also central to Zen, no matter that you might never be told that. When Daehaeng Sunim first awoke to her own True Nature, for example, she described the experience of Buddha-nature as being “full of love and warmth”, so much so that at first she responded simply by calling it “daddy” (which again puts me in mind of that same Galilean addressing his father on equally intimate terms).

Paul said that all of Christianity can be summed up in one word, love (Galatians 5:14), and it is no surprise that some of the most beautiful things ever said about love came from his pen. Buddhists would, naturally, like to add the idea of wisdom to his summation of the holy life, but only if that is the wisdom of real insight. Mere learning adds nothing:

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.

If you are unfamiliar with this passage then I urge you to look it up at 1 Corinthians verse 1 to 13. There is so much there that anyone from any tradition can learn from about love. But, if you prefer to hear much the same in more Buddhist terminology and from a Buddhist Zen Master, you can’t do much better than this passage here:

Love each other…Throw away stubbornness and arrogance. Let go of greed and desire, disolve attachments and clinging, and free yourself from jelousy and envy. With a compassionate smile, entrust all of these harmful states of mind to your foundation, and let them melt down and become one. This is the love and action of a Bodhisattva.
 – Seon Master Daehaeng Sunim, ‘No River to Cross’, p.78

 “Has the Sangha gathered together?”
“We are all gathered.”

“Is everyone united and in harmony?”
“We are united and in harmony.”

“For what have you all gathered?”
“We have gathered to hear the Bodhisattva Precepts explained, and to reflect upon our own shortcomings.“

Thus begins the ceremony for the Bodhisattva Precepts in Korea. While laypeople can and do take these precepts, every six months, monks and nuns are required go to their regional head temple for this ceremony.  (It’s  held once a month in meditation halls and sutra study halls, but it’s also held separately for those who aren’t in one of those.) Attendance is required; they actually make us sign in before the ceremony, and then sign out again after it’s over — no signing the ledger and slipping away!  Traditionally, this should be held at least once a month, but there is a lot of overlap with the Thousand Hands Sutra, which is chanted ever day.

Of the Ten Precepts, when western Buddhists think of numbers 6-10, they may be actually thinking of the ones from the set of Bodhisattva Precepts. 

6: Not discussing the faults of others.
7: Not praising yourself, or speaking ill of others.
8: Not being stingy with material or spiritual aid.
9: Not indulging in anger
10: Not speaking ill of the Three Treasures, the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha.

You may have heard of the precepts against sleeping in a high bed, wearing perfumes, and accepting gold and silver. These are the original precepts of the Vinaya school, and are for renunciates. Whereas the Bodhisattva precepts were developed later, and are not necessarily for monastics alone.

  In total, there are 48 Bodhisattva Precepts. They originate from the Chinese version of the Bramha-jala Sutra, which takes the form of the Buddha reciting these precepts (here’s a link to one version of this sutra). Essentially what the Buddha is saying, is that those who are enlightened behave like this, and not like that. So if you want to become enlightened and a blessing for those around you, (and greatly reduce your own suffering) start by following the example set by the great practitioners whose awakening is reflected in their behavior.

Interestingly, the demand for complete vegetarianism comes from this sutra, as does the requirement of not eating the garlic and onions (perhaps they were considered the oysters of their day?) Some of these precepts seem like they are directed towards lay people, while others are clearly for monastics.

Some of these precepts are:

Don’t act as an agent or emissary for political powers,
respect your teacher and fellow practitioners,
help nurse those who are ill,
not teaching for the sake of profit,
not teaching those who would use what they learned to harm Buddhism and the faithful,
and so on. 

Here’s the full entry for a couple of precepts, to a taste of how they are presented (the quotes come from here) : 

On Slander and Libel

A disciple of the Buddha must not, without cause and with evil intentions, slander virtuous people, such as Elder Masters, monks or nuns, kings, princes or other upright persons, saying that they have committed the Seven Cardinal Sins or broken the Ten Major Bodhisattva Precepts. He should be compassionate and filial and treat all virtuous people as if they were his father, mother, siblings or other close relatives. If instead, he slanders and harms them, he commits a secondary offense.  
 
These precepts are also often worded in a way that makes it hard to deceive ourselves: he must not do it himself, nor command others to do it, nor allow it to happen through inaction, etc.

Some of these precepts also carry interesting insights into how the culture of how people lived at the time. I’m sure we can extrapolate the intention of the following precept, but look at who it’s directed at: slash and burn farmers.

On Starting Wildfires

A disciple of the Buddha shall not, out of evil intentions, start wildfires to clear forests and burn vegetation on mountains and plains, during the fourth to the ninth months of the lunar year. Such fires [are particularly injurious to animals during that period and may spread] to people’s homes, towns and villages, temples and monasteries, fields and groves, as well as the [unseen] dwellings and possessions of deities and ghosts. He must not intentionally set fire to any place where there is life. If he deliberately does so, he commits a secondary offense

 Martine Batchelor has actually published an excellent translation of the complete Korean ceremony with precepts. It’s called The Path of Compassion: The Bodhisattva Precepts.  If you are at all interested in this subject, I recommend checking out her book. This sutra and ceremony are a huge part of the Buddhism of Korea, Japan, and China. I’d like to write a lot more about it, but I can’t find my copy! (If you’re the person I loaned it to, please send it back! ^-^)