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
Monday, January 18, 2010
Is this Real?
Neo: This...this isn't real?
Morpheus: What is real? How do you define real? If you're talking about what you can feel, what you can smell, what you can taste and see, then real is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain.
Based on what we have been contemplating until now, how do you define real? If you look around you right now and see the objects around, the sounds, the smells, do any of them have an inherent existence? If you weren't there at this moment, would they still be recognized in such context? If they weren't there at this very moment, what would give you base to affirm you exist? Can you think, elaborate, or reason, about anything that you haven't experienced with your senses?
When we look at an object, when are we actually seeing? Is it at the moment the lights enter our eyes? Or is it when the light is decoded by the brain? If that's the case so is seeing (and the other senses) a mental activity? If so, what makes us capable to recognize things in common, and what makes us perceive different things in the same objects?
I guess this posting has been more of an encouragement to further contemplation than anything else!!!!
Have a great one everyone!!!
Cris
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
The Spoon Is Empty!
Hello folks, hope you all had a great holiday season.
Continuing with our line of contemplation, I would like to talk a bit about one of the most important texts in Mahayana Buddhism, The Heart Sutra, from the Prajna Paramitta literature. This is the essence of Buddhist texts which will explain emptiness.
In this Sutra we have the bodhisatva mahasatva Chenrezi, or Avalokitezvara, teaching about the emptiness of the five skhandas (aggregates). They are form, sensation, perception, mental formation and consciousness.
In the last posting when we saw that "There is no spoon", we contemplated the fact that the spoon is empty. In other words, when we say that the five skhandas are empty, we are saying that they do not have inherent existence. Lama Samten introduces here the concept of co-emergence in order to explain this better. As we have been seeing in the last postings, co-emergence refers to the fact that the "form" comes to existence when contemplated by the observer. And he too comes to exist as an observer on the dependence of "forms" to contemplate.
When we deal with reality on our daily lives, we are not establishing a connection with the substratum of all things, being what they are made of, but with what they represent according to our views of them. As an example, when we look at a picture of someone we love, we have the same feeling as when we are face to face with that person. Even though the picture is only paper and ink, we establish with the picture the same sort of connection as with the person herself. "There is no spoon" means the same thing. If left alone in the kitchen, the spoon has no use, no existence by itself. But when someone grabs it in order to eat a bowl of soup or a dessert, the person (or the "observer") is adding meaning to the spoon in a context. Look around and contemplate the objects you have in your house. They all live in a dimension of meaning of your mind. They wouldn't be there simply by their own will.
Therefore we can see that there is a "magnetic" reality, and this is the reality that produces meaning and makes our energy flows from one direction to the other, that drives us and makes us appreciate things or not.
Have a great contemplation everyone!
Cris
Continuing with our line of contemplation, I would like to talk a bit about one of the most important texts in Mahayana Buddhism, The Heart Sutra, from the Prajna Paramitta literature. This is the essence of Buddhist texts which will explain emptiness.
In this Sutra we have the bodhisatva mahasatva Chenrezi, or Avalokitezvara, teaching about the emptiness of the five skhandas (aggregates). They are form, sensation, perception, mental formation and consciousness.
In the last posting when we saw that "There is no spoon", we contemplated the fact that the spoon is empty. In other words, when we say that the five skhandas are empty, we are saying that they do not have inherent existence. Lama Samten introduces here the concept of co-emergence in order to explain this better. As we have been seeing in the last postings, co-emergence refers to the fact that the "form" comes to existence when contemplated by the observer. And he too comes to exist as an observer on the dependence of "forms" to contemplate.
When we deal with reality on our daily lives, we are not establishing a connection with the substratum of all things, being what they are made of, but with what they represent according to our views of them. As an example, when we look at a picture of someone we love, we have the same feeling as when we are face to face with that person. Even though the picture is only paper and ink, we establish with the picture the same sort of connection as with the person herself. "There is no spoon" means the same thing. If left alone in the kitchen, the spoon has no use, no existence by itself. But when someone grabs it in order to eat a bowl of soup or a dessert, the person (or the "observer") is adding meaning to the spoon in a context. Look around and contemplate the objects you have in your house. They all live in a dimension of meaning of your mind. They wouldn't be there simply by their own will.
Therefore we can see that there is a "magnetic" reality, and this is the reality that produces meaning and makes our energy flows from one direction to the other, that drives us and makes us appreciate things or not.
Have a great contemplation everyone!
Cris
Thursday, December 17, 2009
There Is No Spoon? So There Is No Cube Either
The following is an extract from the movie "The Matrix"
Spoon boy: Do not try and bend the spoon. That's impossible. Instead... only try to realize the truth.
Neo: What truth?
Spoon boy: There is no spoon.
Neo: There is no spoon?
Spoon boy: Then you'll see, that it is not the spoon that bends, it is only yourself.
"The Matrix" trilogy is undoubtedly one of the richest movies in terms of philosophical contents. The scene above has everything to do with our recent contemplations.
When the Spoon Boy tells Neo that there is no spoon, he is saying the same thing that we have been contemplating in the Cube experience; that we co-emerge with the object. The object gains its meaning because of the observer and the observer only exists because of the objects. One is not independent from the other.
What is the spoon really? Are there spoon molecules? Perhaps, spoon atoms? Maybe spoon electrons and neutrons?
No, the spoon arises only because we recognize it as such. We, as observers, don't establish connections with its atoms, molecules and any other cognitive element, we don't think about those things when we hold a spoon. We establish a connection with the "form" which presents a meaning to us, a meaning that we add to it. And if we are adding meaning to it, we are co-emerging with the object.
Having said all that, we can conclude that "forms" come to exist based on the relationship we establish with them. We don't establish a relationship with the raw materials of the objects, but with their meanings, and these meanings are what we will call "forms".
More to come! Great contemplation everyone!
Cris
Spoon boy: Do not try and bend the spoon. That's impossible. Instead... only try to realize the truth.
Neo: What truth?
Spoon boy: There is no spoon.
Neo: There is no spoon?
Spoon boy: Then you'll see, that it is not the spoon that bends, it is only yourself.
"The Matrix" trilogy is undoubtedly one of the richest movies in terms of philosophical contents. The scene above has everything to do with our recent contemplations.
When the Spoon Boy tells Neo that there is no spoon, he is saying the same thing that we have been contemplating in the Cube experience; that we co-emerge with the object. The object gains its meaning because of the observer and the observer only exists because of the objects. One is not independent from the other.
What is the spoon really? Are there spoon molecules? Perhaps, spoon atoms? Maybe spoon electrons and neutrons?
No, the spoon arises only because we recognize it as such. We, as observers, don't establish connections with its atoms, molecules and any other cognitive element, we don't think about those things when we hold a spoon. We establish a connection with the "form" which presents a meaning to us, a meaning that we add to it. And if we are adding meaning to it, we are co-emerging with the object.
Having said all that, we can conclude that "forms" come to exist based on the relationship we establish with them. We don't establish a relationship with the raw materials of the objects, but with their meanings, and these meanings are what we will call "forms".
More to come! Great contemplation everyone!
Cris
Saturday, December 5, 2009
So? Why does the Cube matter?
As a result of the contemplation of the Cube Experience, we can see that the it appears because of an internal mental disposition. Object and observer co-emerge in the same experience, and that shows that we have an important role as creators of reality, opposed to being mere spectators of it. We tend to think there is a world out there governed by external rules, and we assume a passive role trying to adjust ourselves to this pre-existent reality.
This example shows us how we are creating the world we see, by adding meaning and dimensions according to our own internal world. Furthermore, our difficulty to switch between cubes voluntarily, shows how uncontrolled our minds can be, and how difficult it is to change between perspectives.
If we look to the vertex "A", we can see one cube, and if we look at the vertex "B" we can see another one. Though neither of them really exists, we can see two of them, and the switch between them can be in accord to our own will or simply involuntarily by the will of our uncontrolled mind. Therefore not only we create things, but we get stuck in what we created losing control of it.
Following this line of reasoning, we can see that when we face a difficult situation in life, not only we forget that we are the ones who have created that situation we are experiencing, but we solidify it by victimizing ourselves. If only we had the ability to switch our view of reality and recognize the opportunities we have by looking in different directions, we could turn that situation all around.
When the Dalai Lama states that compassion is key to happiness, that is what he means, to have the ability to look at the same situation under different perspectives. Compassion is the key instrument that allows us to remove the focus of our consciousness from our ego and broaden our minds toward a wider reality with vast possibilities. If we look around and pay attention to how other people manage to cope with bigger problems in life, and at the same time, lead a more happy one, we can find strength and wisdom within ourselves to search for alternative routes instead of blaming the external circumstances.
When a person does something negative to us, it is difficult to see good qualities in that person. Our view gets frozen in only one perspective, this way we limit our perception of reality and create more suffering. This limitation of reality is what we call ignorance. And here is where meditation plays a key role, because it will enable us to practice compassion, by making us not so responsive to our impulses and therefore broaden our minds.
It is amazing how this simple example from Lama Samten can show so much.
Have a great contemplation everyone!!!
Cris
This example shows us how we are creating the world we see, by adding meaning and dimensions according to our own internal world. Furthermore, our difficulty to switch between cubes voluntarily, shows how uncontrolled our minds can be, and how difficult it is to change between perspectives.
If we look to the vertex "A", we can see one cube, and if we look at the vertex "B" we can see another one. Though neither of them really exists, we can see two of them, and the switch between them can be in accord to our own will or simply involuntarily by the will of our uncontrolled mind. Therefore not only we create things, but we get stuck in what we created losing control of it.
Following this line of reasoning, we can see that when we face a difficult situation in life, not only we forget that we are the ones who have created that situation we are experiencing, but we solidify it by victimizing ourselves. If only we had the ability to switch our view of reality and recognize the opportunities we have by looking in different directions, we could turn that situation all around.
When the Dalai Lama states that compassion is key to happiness, that is what he means, to have the ability to look at the same situation under different perspectives. Compassion is the key instrument that allows us to remove the focus of our consciousness from our ego and broaden our minds toward a wider reality with vast possibilities. If we look around and pay attention to how other people manage to cope with bigger problems in life, and at the same time, lead a more happy one, we can find strength and wisdom within ourselves to search for alternative routes instead of blaming the external circumstances.
When a person does something negative to us, it is difficult to see good qualities in that person. Our view gets frozen in only one perspective, this way we limit our perception of reality and create more suffering. This limitation of reality is what we call ignorance. And here is where meditation plays a key role, because it will enable us to practice compassion, by making us not so responsive to our impulses and therefore broaden our minds.
It is amazing how this simple example from Lama Samten can show so much.
Have a great contemplation everyone!!!
Cris
Friday, November 20, 2009
THE CUBE INITIATION - PART II
When we contemplate carefully the picture of the CUBE below, we see there is a dimension that has been added, we are looking at a 2D picture and we see a 3D one instead.
Then we can start wondering more about it. Has this dimension been added by the picture? Or it has been added by the observer? Or is it a combination of both? Is the picture separate from the observer? Or do they come to exist in the same experience, they co-emerge?
It's not difficult to see that the picture alone does not have that power of adding the third dimension, so there must be something else, maybe something within us. Is it our eyes maybe? Even though we see the picture through our eyes, we cannot assume that they are neutral about the object they are capturing, otherwise we wouldn't be able to switch between the Cubes without moving their position.
If we keep staring at the picture without moving our eyes, we can see that the cubes switch from time to time. With practice we can switch between the cubes at our own will without any eye movement at all. Therefore we see that it is not the eyes that add the third dimension to the drawing either.
So maybe it is something else. Is it the mind then? Well, here we can start wondering again. What is the mind? Is it our current flow of thoughts, plans and memories? Let's call this the ordinary mind, just for the sake of understanding. If we investigate a little deeper we see that everything we can think of are linked to the five senses. In other words, all of our thoughts are related to things that we have seen, smelled, tasted, heard and/or touched.
We can close our eyes and imagine a certain picture, a scene of a movie, a scene from your own life. We can even remember and reproduce in our minds the smells, sounds, textures and tastes we have ever experienced before. So we see that our minds are intimately connected with our senses, our senses are intimately connected with their objects, therefore, the ordinary mind is also intimately connected with the objects.
From there we can conclude that the ordinary mind alone would not be able to add the third dimension either. So, what can it? Following that line of reasoning we can conclude that us, the observers, do not come to exist without the objects. For us to exist we depend on the objects we perceive. However, the objects we perceive come to exist due to the abilities of our minds to create and add meanings to objects. Then both, observer and object come to exist in the same experience,they co-emerge, they exist together.
When we look at the drawing and see a cube, we can observe that there is an internal disposition which allows us to see the cube. There is this internal, subtle, "mark" that allows us to perceive the Cube. So the Cube is nothing but a reflexion of this internal disposition.
More to come! Have a great contemplation everyone!
Feel free to make comments, questions and so forth!
Cris
Then we can start wondering more about it. Has this dimension been added by the picture? Or it has been added by the observer? Or is it a combination of both? Is the picture separate from the observer? Or do they come to exist in the same experience, they co-emerge?
It's not difficult to see that the picture alone does not have that power of adding the third dimension, so there must be something else, maybe something within us. Is it our eyes maybe? Even though we see the picture through our eyes, we cannot assume that they are neutral about the object they are capturing, otherwise we wouldn't be able to switch between the Cubes without moving their position.
If we keep staring at the picture without moving our eyes, we can see that the cubes switch from time to time. With practice we can switch between the cubes at our own will without any eye movement at all. Therefore we see that it is not the eyes that add the third dimension to the drawing either.
So maybe it is something else. Is it the mind then? Well, here we can start wondering again. What is the mind? Is it our current flow of thoughts, plans and memories? Let's call this the ordinary mind, just for the sake of understanding. If we investigate a little deeper we see that everything we can think of are linked to the five senses. In other words, all of our thoughts are related to things that we have seen, smelled, tasted, heard and/or touched.
We can close our eyes and imagine a certain picture, a scene of a movie, a scene from your own life. We can even remember and reproduce in our minds the smells, sounds, textures and tastes we have ever experienced before. So we see that our minds are intimately connected with our senses, our senses are intimately connected with their objects, therefore, the ordinary mind is also intimately connected with the objects.
From there we can conclude that the ordinary mind alone would not be able to add the third dimension either. So, what can it? Following that line of reasoning we can conclude that us, the observers, do not come to exist without the objects. For us to exist we depend on the objects we perceive. However, the objects we perceive come to exist due to the abilities of our minds to create and add meanings to objects. Then both, observer and object come to exist in the same experience,they co-emerge, they exist together.
When we look at the drawing and see a cube, we can observe that there is an internal disposition which allows us to see the cube. There is this internal, subtle, "mark" that allows us to perceive the Cube. So the Cube is nothing but a reflexion of this internal disposition.
More to come! Have a great contemplation everyone!
Feel free to make comments, questions and so forth!
Cris
Friday, November 6, 2009
THE CUBE INITIATION - PART I
Hi there folks,
We are back on track after a while without posting. In the few last meditation meetings we've talked about the 12 links of inter-dependence origination and we saw that all our confusion starts with ignorance. But what kind of ignorance are we talking about here?
This ignorance we are referring to has nothing to do with a lack of studying of a certain subject, neither it refers to stupidity of some kind. It has to do with an erroneous perception of reality.
When we establish contact with the world through our physical senses we automatically interpret reality as being separate from us, therefore we see objects, events and phenomena as if they existed independently, as if they had an autonomous and intrinsic identity.
This automatic interpretation leads us to believe that our senses are neutral before the objects we establish contact with, and that they are accurate means for capturing reality. This view is the cause for the origination of ego and its consequences like desire for what is pleasant and aversion for what is not.
One of the best examples from Lama Samten to help us see how we are deceived by our senses is the Cube example. When you look at the picture below, what do you see?
A cube?
How many cubes can you see?
Think carefully!!!
How many?
Two?
We are back on track after a while without posting. In the few last meditation meetings we've talked about the 12 links of inter-dependence origination and we saw that all our confusion starts with ignorance. But what kind of ignorance are we talking about here?
This ignorance we are referring to has nothing to do with a lack of studying of a certain subject, neither it refers to stupidity of some kind. It has to do with an erroneous perception of reality.
When we establish contact with the world through our physical senses we automatically interpret reality as being separate from us, therefore we see objects, events and phenomena as if they existed independently, as if they had an autonomous and intrinsic identity.
This automatic interpretation leads us to believe that our senses are neutral before the objects we establish contact with, and that they are accurate means for capturing reality. This view is the cause for the origination of ego and its consequences like desire for what is pleasant and aversion for what is not.
One of the best examples from Lama Samten to help us see how we are deceived by our senses is the Cube example. When you look at the picture below, what do you see?
A cube?
How many cubes can you see?
Think carefully!!!
How many?
Two?
The next question would be, how can we see a cube, which is a 3D form in a flat 2D screen?
Where is the third dimension that allows us to see not only one, but two cubes? When we are looking at the picture we can shift from one cube to the other, what makes this shift possible?
I will let you guys contemplate it for a while and come back with more comments on the Cube example. There are so many topics for contemplation in this single picture!
Have a good exercise everyone!
Cris
Monday, October 5, 2009
His Holiness The Dalai Lama in Calgary
Last week, on September 30th at the Saddledome, we had the privilege to have here in Calgary His Holiness the XIV Dalai Lama. In one unique and magical event, people from all ages, religious traditions, backgrounds and walks of life were able to experience for themselves the energy of being in the presence of a great master who, with humility, sense of humor and straightforward sincerity, captivated the whole audience.
Even though subjects such as “world peace” and “compassion” are not entirely new, hearing the Dalai Lama explaining how we should strive on this direction can be very compelling. Inner peace, through the cultivation of a tranquil mind are his recommendations so we can first change the world in the individual level and extend it to the family, community, city, state, country, and worldwide levels subsequently. His Holiness emphasized that the world is getting smaller and smaller, so it doesn’t make sense we keep differentiating ourselves as “us” and “them”, and concluded “harming your neighbor is harming yourself”.
In our search for happiness we condition ourselves to events and circumstances without which we might become sad and depressed, making us say words and make actions we might regret afterwards, so we keep leading our lives blindly guided by impulses. Although His Holiness calls himself “a simple Buddhist monk”, it has been evident through the story of his life, as well as through the energy of his presence, how having the lucidity which arises from a controlled mind can bring infinite benefits to infinite beings.
Cris
Even though subjects such as “world peace” and “compassion” are not entirely new, hearing the Dalai Lama explaining how we should strive on this direction can be very compelling. Inner peace, through the cultivation of a tranquil mind are his recommendations so we can first change the world in the individual level and extend it to the family, community, city, state, country, and worldwide levels subsequently. His Holiness emphasized that the world is getting smaller and smaller, so it doesn’t make sense we keep differentiating ourselves as “us” and “them”, and concluded “harming your neighbor is harming yourself”.
In our search for happiness we condition ourselves to events and circumstances without which we might become sad and depressed, making us say words and make actions we might regret afterwards, so we keep leading our lives blindly guided by impulses. Although His Holiness calls himself “a simple Buddhist monk”, it has been evident through the story of his life, as well as through the energy of his presence, how having the lucidity which arises from a controlled mind can bring infinite benefits to infinite beings.
Cris
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
The Conditioned Existence
As we progress on our meditation sessions, we start getting more acquainted with the four noble truths that Buddha announced after his enlightment. Last session we contemplated the first noble truth in which the Buddha points out the human situation of suffering. In the gross level, we suffer when we feel pain or discomfort. This gross level of suffering is somewhat easy to recognize since whenever we feel pain, we do something to get rid of it.
The second level of suffering (more subtle) is the suffering of change. Whenever we experience a dramatic change in our lives we suffer, as an example, being laid off, ending a relationship, etc. We believe in our abilities of planning our lives beforehand, but, as things don’t always go as planned, we suffer.
The third level of suffering is the most subtle one, the one which is much more difficult to realize, the most deceiving one. It prevails anything and everything. Even the happy moments of our lives contain seeds for this suffering to sprout. This is the suffering of conditioned existence. In our daily lives we fail to realize the interconnection between everything, from the objects which we interact with, through our physical senses, to our most intimate thoughts. Everything is conditioned to something else. For me to be here writing this, I depend on having my arms, my hands, the enough dexterity in order to type, as well as my intellectual capacity for writing in English and, the most important, my intellectual understanding of the subject. If any of these conditions were not met, this text would not have been written.
Therefore, everything is dependent on something, or on a combination of other things. As Lama Samten suggests, ask yourself this question: “I am happy if…?” Then a list of factors come up in our list, factors that would cause us to be happy. If we analyze each and everyone of these factors we will also see that they are compounded of smaller parts and if any is missing, your ideal of happiness is not possible.
Because everything is interconnected, we fail to realize the impermanence of everything, from objects to events, and we strive to make the universe around us permanent and stable so we can accomplish our goals. However, when impermanence touches, we suffer. Another aspect of this suffering is our impulses of action (karma) in this impermanent, interconnected environment. We react to events in an automatic way without being aware of the consequences that will lead our lives.
Having said all that, we can see that this third level of suffering is the one underlying the previous two ones. It is the most subtle and it is the essence of our prison. It is a prison because we don’t have controls of our lives as we think we do; we live by following our karmic automatisms and getting frustration after frustration until we die. We desperately seek happiness in impermanent sources, like as if we were trying to kill our thirsts by drinking water from the ocean. We never really get anywhere.
However, not even this prison is permanent and we can break out from it. In the following sessions we will start studying and contemplating the causes that create and sustain this, so we can contemplate how we get out of it. We do have the power and the potential to get rid of this situation, the key to all this is the lucidity of our minds.
May all beings benefit from this!
The second level of suffering (more subtle) is the suffering of change. Whenever we experience a dramatic change in our lives we suffer, as an example, being laid off, ending a relationship, etc. We believe in our abilities of planning our lives beforehand, but, as things don’t always go as planned, we suffer.
The third level of suffering is the most subtle one, the one which is much more difficult to realize, the most deceiving one. It prevails anything and everything. Even the happy moments of our lives contain seeds for this suffering to sprout. This is the suffering of conditioned existence. In our daily lives we fail to realize the interconnection between everything, from the objects which we interact with, through our physical senses, to our most intimate thoughts. Everything is conditioned to something else. For me to be here writing this, I depend on having my arms, my hands, the enough dexterity in order to type, as well as my intellectual capacity for writing in English and, the most important, my intellectual understanding of the subject. If any of these conditions were not met, this text would not have been written.
Therefore, everything is dependent on something, or on a combination of other things. As Lama Samten suggests, ask yourself this question: “I am happy if…?” Then a list of factors come up in our list, factors that would cause us to be happy. If we analyze each and everyone of these factors we will also see that they are compounded of smaller parts and if any is missing, your ideal of happiness is not possible.
Because everything is interconnected, we fail to realize the impermanence of everything, from objects to events, and we strive to make the universe around us permanent and stable so we can accomplish our goals. However, when impermanence touches, we suffer. Another aspect of this suffering is our impulses of action (karma) in this impermanent, interconnected environment. We react to events in an automatic way without being aware of the consequences that will lead our lives.
Having said all that, we can see that this third level of suffering is the one underlying the previous two ones. It is the most subtle and it is the essence of our prison. It is a prison because we don’t have controls of our lives as we think we do; we live by following our karmic automatisms and getting frustration after frustration until we die. We desperately seek happiness in impermanent sources, like as if we were trying to kill our thirsts by drinking water from the ocean. We never really get anywhere.
However, not even this prison is permanent and we can break out from it. In the following sessions we will start studying and contemplating the causes that create and sustain this, so we can contemplate how we get out of it. We do have the power and the potential to get rid of this situation, the key to all this is the lucidity of our minds.
May all beings benefit from this!
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Alan Wallace In Brazil
It's with great joy that I announce that Alan Wallace will be touring Brazil from the 4th to 15th of June. He will be giving lectures on where and how Buddhism and Meditation converge with Neuroscience, as well as providing meditation retreats. He will also be launching one of his latest books: "Hidden Dimensions" which I pasted a little piece of it here so you can have a glimpse:
“… A third disparity between mental appearances and reality pertains to the fact that thoughts, emotions, and other mental phenomena seem to have an inherent personal quality. When strong identification with these processes occurs, one may feel that one’s very identity has become fused with them, and momentarily have the sense “I am angry”, or “I am elated”. But with some skill in observing the contents of the mind, one finds that thoughts and mental images arise by themselves, with no voluntary intervention or control by a separate agent or self.
…As noted previously, all usual kinds of experience, both sensory and introspective, are structured by memories, language, beliefs, and expectations, which cause us to assimilate even novel experiences whether we want to or not. …”
B. Alan Wallace
Hidden Dimensions - page 45
http://www.alanwallace.org/index.htm
“… A third disparity between mental appearances and reality pertains to the fact that thoughts, emotions, and other mental phenomena seem to have an inherent personal quality. When strong identification with these processes occurs, one may feel that one’s very identity has become fused with them, and momentarily have the sense “I am angry”, or “I am elated”. But with some skill in observing the contents of the mind, one finds that thoughts and mental images arise by themselves, with no voluntary intervention or control by a separate agent or self.
…As noted previously, all usual kinds of experience, both sensory and introspective, are structured by memories, language, beliefs, and expectations, which cause us to assimilate even novel experiences whether we want to or not. …”
B. Alan Wallace
Hidden Dimensions - page 45
http://www.alanwallace.org/index.htm
Cris
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Walking The Path
Last meditation meeting we started looking into the path we are going to analyze through our meditation, as recommended by Lama Samten, in which we have the thinking, contemplating and reposing steps. It was suggested that I put the overview here so you guys could have it fresh in your minds and even help you to start contemplating. The steps presented below are within the approach of my master Lama Samten.
We start off by reminding ourselves of something very important that, in the words from His Holiness The Dalai Lama: “All beings wish to be happy and want to avoid suffering”. All sentient beings move toward this goal, from the tiny little ants to the biggest of the elephants.
By having this in mind we contemplate the fact that happiness is somewhat connected to peace, otherwise happiness is either not possible or is too fragile. Then we contemplate the fact that we do not live alone, we are all interdependent, we depend on others to be successful, to be patient, to obtain peace, even to become enlightened. Peace comes from the positive interactions we have with others, if we hurt someone, we are hurting ourselves, we are making our minds more disturbed and agitated. Therefore the notion of Universal Responsibility arises. Here Lama Samten reminds us of the four directions we should establish positive connections with: first with ourselves, then with other people we know, then with all the humanity, and finally with the environment.
By contemplating that, we come to realize that it is important that we establish a Culture of Peace, in which a good heart will be the central key in accomplishing it. Here Lama Samten says: “Peace is like a medicine, first we take this medicine, and after we are healed, we offer this same medicine to the world”.
Therefore it is important that we understand how we operate, what our current condition is, know ourselves, and then make the necessary changes to manifest ourselves more positively in the world.
So we start contemplating reality and ourselves under the lenses of the teachings from Shakiamuni Buddha, on the Four Noble Truths, and the Noble Eightfold Path.
I. In the First Noble Truth we see that we are stuck in cyclic existence where everything is conditioned, and we fluctuate between mental landscapes and scenarios. Sometimes we are doing well, sometimes not so well, sometimes miserable, and so forth. And that is suffering, we are always following our impulses and are never lucid about the impermanence of all things.
II. In the Second Noble Truth we see that suffering is dependant on causes. We suffer because we rely our happiness on impermanent things, trying to obtain peace by changing the world outside us, trying to make permanent what is actually impermanent.
III. In the Third Noble Truth we see that suffering can be stopped once we remove its causes, once we stop relying our security, our happiness on transitory objects, events, emotional states and so on.
IV. In the Fourth Noble Truth, Buddha then showed a path that leads to cessation of suffering.
1 In the first step of this path we generate the right view. By contemplating suffering and its causes, and the fact that all beings are in this river of suffering, we generate the motivation to get out of it. We want to rely on something permanent, free from conditions and fluctuations, and we want help other as well.
In the next three steps we understand that some actions are unwholesome and produce harm to others and to ourselves, therefore they drive us out of our goal and disturb our minds, so should be avoided:
2 Mind Actions: Greed, Heresy, Aversion
We start off by reminding ourselves of something very important that, in the words from His Holiness The Dalai Lama: “All beings wish to be happy and want to avoid suffering”. All sentient beings move toward this goal, from the tiny little ants to the biggest of the elephants.
By having this in mind we contemplate the fact that happiness is somewhat connected to peace, otherwise happiness is either not possible or is too fragile. Then we contemplate the fact that we do not live alone, we are all interdependent, we depend on others to be successful, to be patient, to obtain peace, even to become enlightened. Peace comes from the positive interactions we have with others, if we hurt someone, we are hurting ourselves, we are making our minds more disturbed and agitated. Therefore the notion of Universal Responsibility arises. Here Lama Samten reminds us of the four directions we should establish positive connections with: first with ourselves, then with other people we know, then with all the humanity, and finally with the environment.
By contemplating that, we come to realize that it is important that we establish a Culture of Peace, in which a good heart will be the central key in accomplishing it. Here Lama Samten says: “Peace is like a medicine, first we take this medicine, and after we are healed, we offer this same medicine to the world”.
Therefore it is important that we understand how we operate, what our current condition is, know ourselves, and then make the necessary changes to manifest ourselves more positively in the world.
So we start contemplating reality and ourselves under the lenses of the teachings from Shakiamuni Buddha, on the Four Noble Truths, and the Noble Eightfold Path.
I. In the First Noble Truth we see that we are stuck in cyclic existence where everything is conditioned, and we fluctuate between mental landscapes and scenarios. Sometimes we are doing well, sometimes not so well, sometimes miserable, and so forth. And that is suffering, we are always following our impulses and are never lucid about the impermanence of all things.
II. In the Second Noble Truth we see that suffering is dependant on causes. We suffer because we rely our happiness on impermanent things, trying to obtain peace by changing the world outside us, trying to make permanent what is actually impermanent.
III. In the Third Noble Truth we see that suffering can be stopped once we remove its causes, once we stop relying our security, our happiness on transitory objects, events, emotional states and so on.
IV. In the Fourth Noble Truth, Buddha then showed a path that leads to cessation of suffering.
1 In the first step of this path we generate the right view. By contemplating suffering and its causes, and the fact that all beings are in this river of suffering, we generate the motivation to get out of it. We want to rely on something permanent, free from conditions and fluctuations, and we want help other as well.
In the next three steps we understand that some actions are unwholesome and produce harm to others and to ourselves, therefore they drive us out of our goal and disturb our minds, so should be avoided:
2 Mind Actions: Greed, Heresy, Aversion
3 Speech Actions: Using harsh language, lying, slandering, gossiping;
4 Body Actions: killing, stealing, having sexual misconduct;
5 By not causing harm we learn how to create ourselves more positively in the world by exercising the Four Immeasurable Qualities:
Compassion
Love
Joy
Equanimity
And the six perfections – Paramittas
Generosity / Morality / Patience / Constant Energy / Concentration / Wisdom
6 In this step we sit and meditate, by doing so, we train ourselves not to follow the impulses that drive us along, and blind us from seeing things in different ways, so we start generating lucidity by not responding to outer stimulus.
7 Here we contemplate emptiness, the realization of the fact that nothing is independent, but interdependent. Objects, ego and phenomena present themselves as if they had an inherent existence when they actually don’t. By contemplating emptiness we come to the realization that everything comes together by the interaction of parts, which will then constitute the whole.
8 In this final step we contemplate the fact that we have an unshakable nature, which creates the possibilities for everything to happen. It is always pure and perfect, free from any oscillation of our identities, for it is stable and not dependent on any conditions. Lama Samten always gives one nice example that goes like this: “When you are watching a movie on the theatre (or on the TV screen), no matter how violent the movie is, how many gunshots were fired, how much blood was spilt; at the end of the movie the projection screen doesn’t have any holes, it is not stained with blood, it doesn’t smell of gun powder. So is our true nature. Unshakable by the fluctuations of the characters we put on.”
This is briefly the path we talked about last meeting!
May all beings benefit from it!
Cris
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
A Message From H.H. the Dalai Lama on Universal Responsibility
"As we approach the end of the Twentieth Century, we find that the world is becoming one community. We are being drawn together by the grave problems of over population, dwindling natural resources, and an environmental crisis that threaten the very foundation of our existence on this planet. Human rights, environmental protection and great social and economic equality, are all interrelated. I believe that to meet the challenges of our times, human beings will have to develop a greater sense of universal responsibility. Each of us must learn to work not just for one self, one's own family or one's nation, but for the benefit of all humankind. Universal responsibility is the is the best foundation for world peace ....
I, for one, strongly believe that individuals can make a difference in society. Every individual has a responsibility to help more our global family in the right direction and we must each assume that responsibility. As a Buddhist monk, I try to develop compassion within myself, not simply as a religious practice, but on a human level as well. To encourage myself in this altruistic attitude, I sometimes find it helpful to imagine myself standing as a single individual on one side, facing a huge gathering of all other human beings on the other side. Then I ask myself, 'Whose interests are more important?' To me it is quite clear that however important I may feel I am, I am just one individual while others are infinite in number and importance."
Dalai Lama
http://www.tibet.com/dl/vienna.html
I, for one, strongly believe that individuals can make a difference in society. Every individual has a responsibility to help more our global family in the right direction and we must each assume that responsibility. As a Buddhist monk, I try to develop compassion within myself, not simply as a religious practice, but on a human level as well. To encourage myself in this altruistic attitude, I sometimes find it helpful to imagine myself standing as a single individual on one side, facing a huge gathering of all other human beings on the other side. Then I ask myself, 'Whose interests are more important?' To me it is quite clear that however important I may feel I am, I am just one individual while others are infinite in number and importance."
Dalai Lama
http://www.tibet.com/dl/vienna.html
Friday, November 28, 2008
Monday, November 17, 2008
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