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When we free ourselves from signs, we can enter the heart of reality.
We touch the water when we break through the signs of the water and see its true nature of interbeing. There are three phases — water, not water, true
water.
When we go beyond signs, we enter the world of no-fear and no-blame.
The Diamond Sutra enumerates four signs — self, person, living being, and life span.
We get caught in the sign “self,” because we think there are things that are not self.
We get caught in the sign “person.” We separate humans from animals, trees, and rocks, and feel that non-humans — the fish, the cows, the vegetation, the earth, the air, and the seas — are there for our exploitation.
The third sign is “living being.” We think that sentient beings are different from insentient beings. But living or sentient beings are made of non-living or non-sentient species. When we pollute the so-called non-living species, like the air or the rivers, we pollute living beings as well.
The fourth sign is “life span,” the period of time between our birth and our death. We think we are alive for a specific period of time that has a beginning and an end. But when we look deeply, we see that we have never been born and we will never die, and our fear dissolves.
The Third Door of Liberation is aimlessness, apranihita. There is nothing to do, nothing to realize, no program, no agenda. This is the Buddhist teaching about eschatology. Does the rose have to do something? No, the purpose of a rose is to be a rose. Your purpose is to be yourself. You don’t have to run anywhere to become someone else. You are wonderful just as you are.
become. We are already a Buddha so why not just take the hand of another Buddha and practice walking meditation? This is the teaching of the Avatamsaka Sutra.
Be yourself. Life is precious as it is. All the elements for your happiness are already here. There is no need to run, strive, search, or struggle. Just be. Just being in the moment in this place is the deepest
practice of meditation. Most people cannot believe that just walking as thoug...
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is enough. They think that striving and competing are normal and necessary. Try practicing aimlessness for just five minutes, and you will see how happy you are during those five minutes. The Heart Sutra says that there is “nothing to attain.” We meditate not to attain enlightenment, because enlightenment is already in us. We don’t have to search anywhere. We don’t need a purpose or a goal. We don’t practice in order to obtain some high position. In aimlessness, we see that we do not lack anything, that we already are what we want to become, and our striving just comes to a halt. We are at
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People talk about entering nirvana, but we are already there. Aimlessnes...
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aimlessness. If we think we have twenty-four hours to achieve a certain purpose, today will become a means to attain an end.
The moment of chopping wood and carrying water is the moment of happiness.
We do not need to wait for these chores to be done to be happy. To have happiness in this moment is the spirit of aimlessness. Otherwise, we will run in circles for the rest of our life. We have everything we need to make the present moment the happiest in our life, even if we have a cold or a headache. We don’t ha...
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The practice of apranihita, aimlessness, is the practice of freedom.
the Buddha came to be represented as having “three bodies”: Dharmakaya, the source of enlightenment and happiness; Sambhogakaya, the body of bliss or enjoyment; and Nirmanakaya, the historical embodiment of the Buddha viewed as one of the many transformation bodies sent forth by the Dharmakaya.
Mahayana Buddhists later began to call the Dharmakaya Vairochana, the ontological Buddha,
the soul of the Buddha, the spirit of the Buddha, the true Buddha, the ground of all being, the ground of enlightenment.
Finally, Dharmakaya became equivalent to suchness, nirvana, and Tathagatagarbha (“the...
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The Sambhogakaya is the Buddha’s body of bliss, enjoyment, celebration, results, or rewards.
Sambhogakaya is the fruit of his practice.
This is our body of enjoyment, Sambhogakaya.
Every time we touch something beautiful, in harmony and peace, we touch the Sambhogakaya Buddha.
This is called “self-enjoyment.”
Shakyamuni, the historical Buddha, is the Nirmanakaya, a beam of light sent into the world by the sun of the Dharmakaya to help relieve the suffering of living beings.
Each of us has three bodies — a Dharma body, an enjoyment body, and a physical body.
discover your own Dharma body, your own body of bliss, and your own body of transformation.
practitioners always say, “I go back and rely on the Buddha in myself.” Adding “in myself” makes it clear that we ourselves are the Buddha. When we take refuge in Buddha, we must also understand, “The Buddha takes refuge in me.”
