Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
READ IT, TEST IT, AND SEE IT FOR YOURSELF, ONLY THEN PASS IT ON
A lot of e-mails circulate on the Internet about spirituality, generally they contain power point files attached with sweet and comforting words and a calm song in the background with the aim to provide you with a minute of peace in your agitated life.
Most of these Power Points don’t mention their authors and people simply read them, like or dislike them, and either delete them or press the forward button to all his/her contact list the same way they do with jokes, news and other general things.
Having said that, I want to say that I don't have anything against them, but I decided to write this text to show the importance of a mental attitude of questioning and testing what is being presented before you either believe them or not.
As a follower of the Tibetan Buddhist tradition I learned that it is always important to test if a master and his teachings are authentic before we rely on them. And to do that, we should always test them in our lives, because that is what will validate whether the master and the teachings are true or not. By doing that, we come to experience the teachings, as opposed to merely obtaining information from them, which we will then judge whether we believe them or not.
The Buddha himself said: “Don’t believe me, test everything I say!” And it is through this attitude that his disciples have been keeping his teachings alive for more than 2500 years.
If we follow his advice, we come to experience a change in us that is beyond labels of faith and religion. That is what produces substantial changes in our lives, including the way we relate with things and other beings.
A lot of these e-mails I mentioned before talk about compassion and love, but they never teach us “how” or “why” to practice them, they do not present a mean through which we can effectively test them. For example, they might even mention that we are all one and interconnected but they never provide us with means to see that for ourselves.
Therefore, how can we practice love and compassion if we see “others” on our way as beings who present us with situations to which we react with anger, fear, jealousy, pride, greed, attachment, craving and ignorance?
If we dwell in this view, compassion and love will always be empty words without ever producing any changes in us. This way, compassion and love are utopias.
Having said all that, I would like to share a way of testing "how" and "why" we are indeed inseparable from everything we perceive in order to move towards a more compassionate relation with others and the environment.
This simple, but powerful, example is given by my master, Lama Padma Samten, for us to “see” how we co-emerge with all our experiences.
See the image below:
When we look at the picture, very easily we can see a Cube in it. But how can we see a 3D object on a 2D screen? We never question ourselves that.
This shows us that we have internal mental references which we use to relate with what is being shown “outside”. And not only that, but we can see that we can see two cubes in the same picture, one Cube with face of vertex “A” in the front, and another one with the face of vertex “B” in the front. That shows us that, not only what we see “outside” is a reflex of what we have internally, but there is a dimension of freedom which allows us to change (choose) between the internal references we want to use (in this example whether we want to see the Cube of vertex A in the front or the one with vertex B in the front). So this dimension of freedom is what creates the cubes and allows us to change (choose) between them.
In this very same way, everything that we “see” outside is a reflex of the internal references we have inside, and not only that, but we also add meaning to them and relate with them classifying them in "likes" and "dislikes", and then we act according to those meanings.
The contemplation of that can bring us to realize that we indeed co-emerge with the world. Then we see that the world is in constant creation and transformation because our consciousness, inseparable from this dimension of freedom, is constantly choosing, creating and updating all these internal references, therefore creating what we experience “outside”. If we recognize this freedom and change them at our own will, we are exercising freedom. But if we are not in control of them, if we feel incapable of making conscious changes, it means we are being guided by impulses (karma) that dictate the course of our experiences, whether pleasant or unpleasant, and we can only see them in one way.
Everyone and everything we relate with in our lives play a role in our consciousness, and our relationships with them are what define us, they are reflexes of our inner mental references; therefore, by doing them harm, we are harming ourselves by creating connections to internal mental references of suffering.
Only by realizing this inseparability, this co-emergence, love and compassion will make sense and we will be able to practice them; as opposed to just intellectually understanding them. And that makes us realize that we are indeed creators of the world, not mere “players” in a pre-existent one.
Such realization is effectively attained with a calm and focused mind as the ground that will provide the seed of wisdom to sprout. And to accomplish that, meditation is crucial.
So why should we practice love and compassion?
Because by seeing that we are inseparable from everything and everyone, by benefiting others we are benefiting ourselves.
How should we practice love and compassion then?
Contemplating and seeing our co-emergence with the world, using the aid of a calm and focused mind.
And how do we calm and focus our mind?
Meditation.
These are the ways I have been learning to “experience” and “change” my reality towards a more positive one in which I can bring benefits to others. I am fortunate to have found an authentic teacher, with authentic teachings, who has been showing me to perfect this all the time on a daily basis, affecting my relationship with all the ones around me.
Whether you will test this for yourself or not is a choice I leave to you. But I just want to say that: “When you read these power point e-mails, or books and texts, or when you listen to lectures of various speakers; before believing or disbelieving them, see if there are means to test that which is being presented, see if by testing it, it will indeed produce any substantial change, resulting in a more positive attitude in your daily life”.
Cris
http://www.cebb.org.br/english
http://thelotusmandala.blogspot.com/
Most of these Power Points don’t mention their authors and people simply read them, like or dislike them, and either delete them or press the forward button to all his/her contact list the same way they do with jokes, news and other general things.
Having said that, I want to say that I don't have anything against them, but I decided to write this text to show the importance of a mental attitude of questioning and testing what is being presented before you either believe them or not.
As a follower of the Tibetan Buddhist tradition I learned that it is always important to test if a master and his teachings are authentic before we rely on them. And to do that, we should always test them in our lives, because that is what will validate whether the master and the teachings are true or not. By doing that, we come to experience the teachings, as opposed to merely obtaining information from them, which we will then judge whether we believe them or not.
The Buddha himself said: “Don’t believe me, test everything I say!” And it is through this attitude that his disciples have been keeping his teachings alive for more than 2500 years.
If we follow his advice, we come to experience a change in us that is beyond labels of faith and religion. That is what produces substantial changes in our lives, including the way we relate with things and other beings.
A lot of these e-mails I mentioned before talk about compassion and love, but they never teach us “how” or “why” to practice them, they do not present a mean through which we can effectively test them. For example, they might even mention that we are all one and interconnected but they never provide us with means to see that for ourselves.
Therefore, how can we practice love and compassion if we see “others” on our way as beings who present us with situations to which we react with anger, fear, jealousy, pride, greed, attachment, craving and ignorance?
If we dwell in this view, compassion and love will always be empty words without ever producing any changes in us. This way, compassion and love are utopias.
Having said all that, I would like to share a way of testing "how" and "why" we are indeed inseparable from everything we perceive in order to move towards a more compassionate relation with others and the environment.
This simple, but powerful, example is given by my master, Lama Padma Samten, for us to “see” how we co-emerge with all our experiences.
See the image below:
When we look at the picture, very easily we can see a Cube in it. But how can we see a 3D object on a 2D screen? We never question ourselves that.
This shows us that we have internal mental references which we use to relate with what is being shown “outside”. And not only that, but we can see that we can see two cubes in the same picture, one Cube with face of vertex “A” in the front, and another one with the face of vertex “B” in the front. That shows us that, not only what we see “outside” is a reflex of what we have internally, but there is a dimension of freedom which allows us to change (choose) between the internal references we want to use (in this example whether we want to see the Cube of vertex A in the front or the one with vertex B in the front). So this dimension of freedom is what creates the cubes and allows us to change (choose) between them.
In this very same way, everything that we “see” outside is a reflex of the internal references we have inside, and not only that, but we also add meaning to them and relate with them classifying them in "likes" and "dislikes", and then we act according to those meanings.
The contemplation of that can bring us to realize that we indeed co-emerge with the world. Then we see that the world is in constant creation and transformation because our consciousness, inseparable from this dimension of freedom, is constantly choosing, creating and updating all these internal references, therefore creating what we experience “outside”. If we recognize this freedom and change them at our own will, we are exercising freedom. But if we are not in control of them, if we feel incapable of making conscious changes, it means we are being guided by impulses (karma) that dictate the course of our experiences, whether pleasant or unpleasant, and we can only see them in one way.
Everyone and everything we relate with in our lives play a role in our consciousness, and our relationships with them are what define us, they are reflexes of our inner mental references; therefore, by doing them harm, we are harming ourselves by creating connections to internal mental references of suffering.
Only by realizing this inseparability, this co-emergence, love and compassion will make sense and we will be able to practice them; as opposed to just intellectually understanding them. And that makes us realize that we are indeed creators of the world, not mere “players” in a pre-existent one.
Such realization is effectively attained with a calm and focused mind as the ground that will provide the seed of wisdom to sprout. And to accomplish that, meditation is crucial.
So why should we practice love and compassion?
Because by seeing that we are inseparable from everything and everyone, by benefiting others we are benefiting ourselves.
How should we practice love and compassion then?
Contemplating and seeing our co-emergence with the world, using the aid of a calm and focused mind.
And how do we calm and focus our mind?
Meditation.
These are the ways I have been learning to “experience” and “change” my reality towards a more positive one in which I can bring benefits to others. I am fortunate to have found an authentic teacher, with authentic teachings, who has been showing me to perfect this all the time on a daily basis, affecting my relationship with all the ones around me.
Whether you will test this for yourself or not is a choice I leave to you. But I just want to say that: “When you read these power point e-mails, or books and texts, or when you listen to lectures of various speakers; before believing or disbelieving them, see if there are means to test that which is being presented, see if by testing it, it will indeed produce any substantial change, resulting in a more positive attitude in your daily life”.
Cris
http://www.cebb.org.br/english
http://thelotusmandala.blogspot.com/
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Motivation - Part II
As mentioned in the previous posting, all of our actions are based by our inner motivation. Upon contemplation of our own lives we can see that there are aspects of it that might give us the feeling that we have been walking in circles, one after the other. If we investigate it a little deeper, we will see that this feeling of "walking in circles" comes from our incapacity to change our mindset. As a result we are bound to keep making the same choices over and over and keep experiencing the same frustrations over and over.
Even though sometimes we feel we are making a fresh new choice, judging by the changing of appearances, we overlook the mental pattern we are using to make that "new" choice, which in the end, is the same pattern we have been using for previous choices that ended in frustration in previous cycles. Therefore we see that the mindset we use is always the same. This mindset is a mental scenario under which our ego is operating.
The difficulty in changing the mindset arises from a selfish motivation that leads us to judge the best actions to be taken according to the satisfaction of that particular mental scenario. However, when we have a truly compassionate motivation, we look to others trying to understand them in their contexts and see which mental scenarios are validating their experiences. That helps us to "see" our own mental scenario by broadening our minds and actually "see" the interdependence of all things, therefore reducing our attachments to a false idea of ego, which prevents us from realizing our primordial nature.
As a first step in an effective meditation practice, we should contemplate our inner motivation and make that a selfless one, otherwise your meditation will end up being an experience filled with frustration, leading you nowhere, just as our choices guided by ignorance.
May all beings benefit from it!
Cris
Even though sometimes we feel we are making a fresh new choice, judging by the changing of appearances, we overlook the mental pattern we are using to make that "new" choice, which in the end, is the same pattern we have been using for previous choices that ended in frustration in previous cycles. Therefore we see that the mindset we use is always the same. This mindset is a mental scenario under which our ego is operating.
The difficulty in changing the mindset arises from a selfish motivation that leads us to judge the best actions to be taken according to the satisfaction of that particular mental scenario. However, when we have a truly compassionate motivation, we look to others trying to understand them in their contexts and see which mental scenarios are validating their experiences. That helps us to "see" our own mental scenario by broadening our minds and actually "see" the interdependence of all things, therefore reducing our attachments to a false idea of ego, which prevents us from realizing our primordial nature.
As a first step in an effective meditation practice, we should contemplate our inner motivation and make that a selfless one, otherwise your meditation will end up being an experience filled with frustration, leading you nowhere, just as our choices guided by ignorance.
May all beings benefit from it!
Cris
Friday, March 12, 2010
Motivation - Part I
On this posting we will talk about motivation as a first step towards a good meditation practice.
Everything we do in our lives is supported by an inner motivation, whether we are aware of it or not. Most of the time we are not aware of it, we simply act in the world following our impulses, those being our automatic responses to the events of life. Then we act as if we were always pursuing something which we are not sure what it is. We keep on moving this way without never questioning ourselves: why am I doing this? Why do I want to go that way and not the other? Why do I like this and not that?
If we start asking ourselves those questions then we will inevitably come to the conclusion that we do what we do, the way we think it's right, because we simply want to be happy, and we don't want to suffer. However, each and everyone of us will have different views as to what happiness is. If we contemplate it a little deeper we will see that we all have selfish views of happiness. Even though we all say we want to live in a world of peace, in harmony with other people, and the environment; what we really want is to satisfy our cravings for sensory pleasures, because this is the way we measure satisfaction, therefore happiness. Good food, material comfort, pleasant smells, music, have people admiring us, respecting us and so forth, are a few of the examples we can find as measurements of happiness.
In this search of happiness we look outside and see what the world around us has to offer, putting ourselves on the dependence of that. We begin an impossible quest which will lead us to an endless cycle of craving and frustration. We want to consume more, then we need more money, better positions, we compete with others for that and we do what we can to get it. In our leisure time we crave for entertainment, then we need the best cable TV, the best games, the best activities, the best places to go. We are always running after something. Even though sometimes we manage to get them, a while later that is not much more than a fade memory in our mind, and there we go again needing more fuel for all this.
With all that in our minds, when we try and sit in meditation we wonder why it is so difficult to remain quiet and still for a few moments. One thought comes right after the other, plans, memories, regrets, pleasant feelings, unpleasant feelings; all these moving our minds and our energy arbitrarily from one side to the other, then finally we say: "this meditation thing is not for me, leave it to those monks who don't do nothing but meditate."
A lot of us are frightened by the idea of being on our own, just us and our minds. We are afraid of looking into ourselves because we might find many knots we have been tying ourselves to, and we don't know how to untie them. We might find in ourselves contradictory feelings and thoughts that show us that we are not what we have been trying to be. We might find that our motivation in life is a selfish one, even when trying to help others. Either we do it because we want to compute credits with some divine being and go to heaven, or because we expect something in return.
After contemplating all that, we see that it is our very motivation that holds the key to genuine happiness. Therefore, there is a need for careful analysis of what motivation will lead us to peace of mind and genuine happiness, and what motivation will lead us to cyclic frustration.
To be continued...
Cris
Everything we do in our lives is supported by an inner motivation, whether we are aware of it or not. Most of the time we are not aware of it, we simply act in the world following our impulses, those being our automatic responses to the events of life. Then we act as if we were always pursuing something which we are not sure what it is. We keep on moving this way without never questioning ourselves: why am I doing this? Why do I want to go that way and not the other? Why do I like this and not that?
If we start asking ourselves those questions then we will inevitably come to the conclusion that we do what we do, the way we think it's right, because we simply want to be happy, and we don't want to suffer. However, each and everyone of us will have different views as to what happiness is. If we contemplate it a little deeper we will see that we all have selfish views of happiness. Even though we all say we want to live in a world of peace, in harmony with other people, and the environment; what we really want is to satisfy our cravings for sensory pleasures, because this is the way we measure satisfaction, therefore happiness. Good food, material comfort, pleasant smells, music, have people admiring us, respecting us and so forth, are a few of the examples we can find as measurements of happiness.
In this search of happiness we look outside and see what the world around us has to offer, putting ourselves on the dependence of that. We begin an impossible quest which will lead us to an endless cycle of craving and frustration. We want to consume more, then we need more money, better positions, we compete with others for that and we do what we can to get it. In our leisure time we crave for entertainment, then we need the best cable TV, the best games, the best activities, the best places to go. We are always running after something. Even though sometimes we manage to get them, a while later that is not much more than a fade memory in our mind, and there we go again needing more fuel for all this.
With all that in our minds, when we try and sit in meditation we wonder why it is so difficult to remain quiet and still for a few moments. One thought comes right after the other, plans, memories, regrets, pleasant feelings, unpleasant feelings; all these moving our minds and our energy arbitrarily from one side to the other, then finally we say: "this meditation thing is not for me, leave it to those monks who don't do nothing but meditate."
A lot of us are frightened by the idea of being on our own, just us and our minds. We are afraid of looking into ourselves because we might find many knots we have been tying ourselves to, and we don't know how to untie them. We might find in ourselves contradictory feelings and thoughts that show us that we are not what we have been trying to be. We might find that our motivation in life is a selfish one, even when trying to help others. Either we do it because we want to compute credits with some divine being and go to heaven, or because we expect something in return.
After contemplating all that, we see that it is our very motivation that holds the key to genuine happiness. Therefore, there is a need for careful analysis of what motivation will lead us to peace of mind and genuine happiness, and what motivation will lead us to cyclic frustration.
To be continued...
Cris
Monday, February 15, 2010
Meditation, Brain, Body, Mind
Hi there folks,
As I had promised, from this posting on we will start talking more about meditation itself. Before going on to the steps of meditation that Lama Samten (picture), my meditation master, lays out in order to increase attention, compassion and experience deeper levels of reality, I decided to talk about meditation in general, and then narrow down to more specific practice as we go along.
As you all know, there are lots of types of meditations out there, and this practice has been gaining more popularity over the years. It has been practiced all over, from yogi caves and monasteries to work out gyms. The benefits of practicing this "activity" have become so evident that it is attracting more and more adepts, as well as the scientific community to perform studies on how it affects the body and the brain.
One of these studies has to do with the neuroplascticity of the brain. Our neurons connect with each other to form an entranced web which influences the way we perceive and react to external stimuli. However, our very response to external stimuli will also reinforce and solidify the connections of this web, limiting ourselves to patterns of response. The more ingrained our habits are, the more solid these connections become and more difficult it is for us to change and widen our perception of reality. Meditation has been proven to ease these connections, enabling actual changes through reconfiguring neurons connections.
This is very evident just by observing how we interact with the world. If we have the same routine over and over, always connecting with the same people, the same habits and so on, the more difficult it is to see other opportunities out there. Opportunities to learn how to do things differently, meet other people, recognize other values and be open to more profound experiences.
His Holiness The Dalai Lama has been for years engaged in the study of how meditation interferes in the brain.
Here goes an extract from an article on meditation and neuroplasticity:
"...Since the 1990s, the Dalai Lama has been lending monks and lamas to neuroscientists for studies of how meditation alters activity in the brain. The idea was not to document brain changes during meditation but to see whether such mental training produces enduring changes in the brain.
...All the Buddhist “adepts” — experienced meditators — who lent their brains to science had practiced meditation for at least 10,000 hours. One by one, they made their way to the basement lab of Richard Davidson at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He and his colleagues wired them up like latter-day Medusas, a tangle of wires snaking from their scalps to the electroencephalograph that would record their brain waves.
...As the volunteers began meditating, one kind of brain wave grew exceptionally strong: gamma waves. These, scientists believe, are a signature of neuronal activity that knits together far-flung circuits — consciousness, in a sense. Gamma waves appear when the brain brings together different features of an object, such as look, feel, sound and other attributes that lead the brain to its aha moment of, yup, that’s an armadillo.
Some of the novices “showed a slight but significant increase in the gamma signal,” Prof. Davidson explained to the Dalai Lama. But at the moment the monks switched on compassion meditation, the gamma signal began rising and kept rising. On its own, that is hardly astounding: Everything the mind does has a physical correlate, so the gamma waves (much more intense than in the novice meditators) might just have been the mark of compassion meditation.
Except for one thing. In between meditations, the gamma signal in the monks never died down. Even when they were not meditating, their brains were different from the novices’ brains, marked by waves associated with perception, problem solving and consciousness. Moreover, the more hours of meditation training a monk had had, the stronger and more enduring the gamma signal...."
I invite you o read the article from the following link: http://bipolarblast.wordpress.com/2008/06/19/meditation-and-neuroplasticity/
If you search on the web you will also find the benefits below along with others:
- It lowers oxygen consumption.
- It decreases respiratory rate.
- It increases blood flow and slows the heart rate.
- Increases exercise tolerance in heart patients.
- Leads to a deeper level of relaxation.
- Good for people with high blood pressure as it brings the B.P. to normal.
- Reduces anxiety attacks by lowering the levels of blood lactate.
- Decreases muscle tension (any pain due to tension) and headaches.
- Builds self-confidence.
- It increases serotonin production which influences mood and behaviour. Low levels of serotonin are associated with depression, obesity, insomnia and headaches.
- Helps in chronic diseases like allergies , arthritis etc.
- Reduces Pre- menstrual Syndrome.
- Helps in post-operative healing.
- Enhances the immune system. Research has revealed that meditation increases activity of 'natural-killer cells', which kill bacteria and cancer cells.
- Also reduces activity of viruses and emotional distress.
Have a great one!
Cris
Living on a CHOICE
Morpheus: You take the blue pill - the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill - you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.
Hi there folks, this posting has the purpose of wrapping up all the cognitive reasoning we have been doing till now. The upcoming ones will be dealing more with the practice of meditation itself, which, after all, is the key to open the doors of a more deep perception of reality.
By now, if you read and thought about all that that has been said here, you might be asking yourself: "ok, why should I care about all this after all?" "Is there something really worth in all this that can change my life for the better?"
To answer that, which really has to come from you, I invite you to investigate the following questions: In our pursuit of happiness what is the result we have achieved so far? Have we found it? Or we still running around like a fly that hits the window over and over because it is not seeing the glass? Is the question of happiness really clear to us? Is our pursuit based on our sensory sensations, whether I like, dislike, or I am indifferent to something, or it is based on feelings such as compassion, love, joy and equanimity? Can these feelings make us achieve peace of mind? Can our sensory pleasures help us achieve peace of mind? If none of those, then what can?
Therefore the next postings will be like an invitation to actually practice a way in which you can obtain YOUR OWN answers to these questions. After all, the only way we can really say we know something for sure, is by experiencing for ourselves. Otherwise we will just be like parrots repeating words we heard without never questioning them or being aware of their true meaning.
Neo to the Matrix at the end of the first movie: "... I don't know the future. I didn't come here to tell you how this is going to end. I came here to tell how it's going to begin. I'm going to hang up this phone, and then show these people what you don't want them to see. I'm going to show them a world without you. A world without rules or controls, borders or boundaries. A world where anything is possible. Where we go from there is a choice I leave to you"
"However many holy words you read, however many you speak, what good will they do you if you do not act on upon them?"
Buddha
"The truth will set you free"
Jesus
Cris :)
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Who AM I?
When Neo re-enters the matrix for the first time after he had been freed, on the way to see the oracle for the first time, he has the following dialogue with Trinity.
Neo: I have these memories from my life. None of them happened. What does that mean?
Trinity: That the Matrix cannot tell you who you are.
Similarly, when we take a closer look into our own experiences and see that all we can use as references to support our notion of existence, are only processes of relationship and interactions based by the stimuli from the environment perceived by our senses, we can see that none of them present inherent existence.
And as we saw, all the things we interact with are co-emergent with our own way of seeing them, we don't establish a connection with their substratum but with what we add to them in terms of meaning, to the dimensions we add to them.
Therefore, the questions that arise in our minds are: Who am I? Is there anything unchangeable, solid, permanent, in my experience of "I"? Can all those things I perceive with my senses tell me about my identity? Are they the definers of my identity, my ego?
More to come!
Cris
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