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To practice samadhi is to live deeply each moment that is given us to live. Samadhi means concentration.
the four formless dhyanas — where he or she can see deeply into reality. Here, sensual desire and materiality reveal their illusory nature and are no longer obstacles.
The object of the fifth level of concentration is limitless space.
The object of the sixth level of concentration is limitless consciousness.
The object of the seventh level of concentration is nothingness.
We go beyond outward appearances or signs and come to “signlessness.”
We used to think that the universe contains millions of separate entities. Now we understand “the nonexistence of signs.”
The eighth level of concentration is that of neither perception nor non-perception.
Since we no longer believe in the reality of signs, our perception becomes wisdom. We go beyond signs (“no perception”), but we do not become perceptionless (“no non-perception”). The ninth level of concentration is called cessation. “Cessation” here means the cessation of ignorance in our feelings and perceptions, not the cessation of feelings and perceptions. From this concentration is born insight.
The seventh consciousness is the energy of delusion that creates the belief in a self and distinguishes self from other.
The greatest internal formation is ignorance of the reality of impermanence and nonself. This ignorance gives rise to greed, hatred, confusion, pride, doubt, and views. Together, these afflictions produce a war of consciousness called manas, which always discriminates self from other.
The insight into impermanence keeps you from getting caught in the suffering of craving, attachment, and despair. See and listen to everything with this insight.
The practice of the Concentration on Nirvana helps you to touch the ultimate dimension of reality and establish yourself in the realms of no birth and no death. The Concentrations on Impermanence, Nonself, and Nirvana are enough for us to practice our whole lives. In fact, the three are one. If you touch the nature of impermanence deeply, you touch the nature of nonself (interbeing) and nirvana. One concentration contains all concentrations. You don’t need to do everything.
The Buddha is not found only on Gridhrakuta, the Vulture Peak.
If you don’t have the opportunity to fly to India, please practice walking at home, and you can really hold the hand of the Buddha while you walk. Just walk in peace and happiness, and the Buddha is there with you. The one who flies to India and returns with his photo taken with the Buddha has not seen the real Buddha. You have the reality; he has only a sign.
Live every moment of your life deeply, and while walking, eating, drinking, and looking at the morning star, you touch the ultimate dimension.
To practice Right Livelihood (samyag ajiva), you have to find a way to earn your living without transgressing your ideals of love and compassion. The way you support yourself can be an expression of your deepest self, or it can be a source of suffering for you and others.
The sutras usually define Right Livelihood as earning a living without needing to transgress any of the Five Mindfulness Trainings: not dealing in arms, in the slave trade, the meat trade, the sale of alcohol, drugs, or poisons; or making prophecies or telling fortunes.
Bringing awareness to every moment, we try to have a vocation that is beneficial to humans, animals, plants, and the earth, or at least minimally harmful.
Like being vegan.
When you practice your profession or trade, observe the Five Mindfulness Trainings. A job that involves killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, lying, or selling drugs or alcohol is not Right Livelihood. If your company pollutes the rivers or the air, working there is not Right Livelihood. Making weapons or profiting from others’ superstitions is also not Right Livelihood.
Right Livelihood is not just a personal matter. It is our collective karma.
We may think the butcher’s livelihood is wrong and ours is right, but if we didn’t eat meat, he would not have to kill. Right Livelihood is a collective matter. The
Everything we do contributes to our effort to practice Right Livelihood. It is more than just the way we earn our paycheck. We cannot succeed at having a Right Livelihood one hundred percent, but we can resolve to go in the direction of compassion and reducing suffering. And we can resolve to help create a society in which there is more Right Livelihood and less wrong livelihood.
To manufacture or sell weapons is not Right Livelihood, but the responsibility for this situation lies with all of us — politicians, economists, and consumers.
If you are able to work in a profession that helps realize your ideal of compassion, be grateful. And please try to help create proper jobs for others by living mindfully, simply, and sanely. Use all of your energy to try to improve the situation.
These are very practical and important questions. To work in a way that encourages this kind of thinking and acting, in a way that encourages our ideal of compassion, is to practice Right Livelihood.
If someone has a profession that causes living beings to suffer and oppresses others, it will infect their own consciousness, just as when we pollute the air that we ourselves have to breathe. Many people get rich by means of wrong livelihood. Then they go to their temple or church and make donations. These donations come from feelings of fear and guilt rather than the wish to bring happiness to others and relieve others of suffering. When a temple or church receives large donations, those responsible for receiving the funds must understand this; they should do their best to help the donor
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Practicing the First Noble Truth, we recognize our suffering and call it by its name — depression, anxiety, fear, or insecurity. Then we look directly into that suffering to discover its basis, and that is practicing the Second Noble Truth. These two practices contain the first two elements of the Noble Eightfold Path, namely, Right View and Right Thinking.
In fact, it is not possible to practice one element of the Noble Eightfold Path without practicing all seven other elements. This is the nature of interbeing, and it is true for all of the teachings offered by the Buddha.
According to Buddhism, there are two kinds of truth, relative or worldly truth (samvriti satya) and absolute truth (paramartha satya). We enter the door of practice through relative truth.
The poet is trying to leap into absolute truth without walking the path of relative truth. Many people think that in order to avoid suffering, they have to give up joy, and they call this “transcending joy and suffering.” This is not correct.
Don’t get caught in theories or ideas, such as saying that suffering is an illusion or that we have to “transcend” both suffering and joy. Just stay in touch with what is actually going on, and you will touch the true nature of suffering and the true nature of joy. When you have a headache, it would not be correct to call your headache illusory. To help it go away, you have to acknowledge its existence and understand its causes.
But at some point, all of our concepts and ideas must yield to our actual experience. Words and ideas are only useful if they are put into practice. When we stop discussing things and begin to realize the teachings in our own life, a moment comes when we realize that our life is the path, and we no longer rely merely on the forms of practice. Our action becomes “non-action,” and our practice becomes “non-practice.” The boundary has been crossed, and our practice cannot be set back. We do not have to transcend the “world of dust” (saha) in order to go to some dust-free world called nirvana.
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The Buddha is speaking in terms of relative truth, and Avalokiteshvara is teaching in terms of absolute truth.
The Four Noble Truths were presented by the Buddha as relative truth to help you enter the door of practice, but they are not his deepest teaching.
With the eyes of interbeing, we can always reconcile the Two Truths. When we see, comprehend, and touch the nature of interbeing, we see the Buddha.
When the Buddha says, “The complete silencing is joy,” he means that thinking, conceptualizing, and speaking have come to an end. This is the Third Noble Truth in absolute terms.
The Buddha recommends that we recite the “Five Remembrances” every day: (1) I am of the nature to grow old. There is no way to escape growing old. (2) I am of the nature to have ill-health. There is no way to escape having ill-health. (3) I am of the nature to die. There is no way to escape death. (4) All that is dear to me and everyone I love are of the nature to change. There is no way to escape being separated from them. (5) My actions are my only true belongings. I cannot escape the consequences of my actions. My actions are the ground on which I stand.
Liberation is the ability to go from the world of signs to the world of true nature.
We need the relative world of the wave, but we also need to touch the water, the ground of our being, to have real peace and joy. We shouldn’t allow relative truth to imprison us and keep us from touching absolute truth. Looking deeply into relative truth, we penetrate the absolute. Relative and absolute truths inter-embrace. Both truths, relative and absolute, have a value.
The “Yin” and the “Yang” of it…
You can be very happy being an old person.
The Buddha recommends we live our daily life in this way, seeing everything in the light of interbeing.
Look into the self and discover that it is made only of nonself elements. A human being is made up of only non-human elements. To protect humans, we have to protect the nonhuman elements — the air, the water, the forest, the river, the mountains, and the animals. The Diamond Sutra is the most ancient text about how to respect all forms of life on earth, the animals, vegetation, and also minerals. We have to remove the notion of human as something that can survive by itself alone. Humans can survive only with the survival of other species. This is exactly the teaching of the Buddha, and also
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Buddhism as a spiritual discipline and being Vegan as a chosen lifestyle practice are close corollaries.
Our notions about living beings and inanimate things should be removed for us to touch reality. The fourth notion to be removed is life span.
Within us, we carry the world of no birth and no death. But we never touch it, because we live only with our notions. The practice is to remove these notions and touch the ultimate dimension — nirvana, God, the world of no birth and no death.
The Third Holy Truth is about relative well-being, which is impermanent.
The Fourth Noble Truth is the cessation of the causes of suffering.
Imagine two hens about to be slaughtered, but they do not know it. One hen says to the other, “The rice is much tastier than the corn. The corn is slightly off.” She is talking about relative joy. She does not realize that the real joy of this moment is the joy of not being slaughtered, the joy of being alive.
Which is another excellent example of why I choose to live a vegan life.
When we practice the Four Holy Truths in the dimension of relative truth, we obtain some relief. We are able to transform our suffering and restore our well-being. But we are still in the historical dimension of reality. The deeper level of practice is to lead our daily life in a way that we touch both the absolute and the relative truth. In the dimension of relative truth, the Buddha passed away many years ago. But in the realm of absolute truth, we can take his hand and join him for walking meditation every day.
To enter the heart of the Buddha, use your Buddha eyes, which means your insight into interbeing. Approach the heart of the Buddha in the realm of absolute truth, and the Buddha will be there with you.
