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Tag Archives: Buddha

Monday, 2 January, 2012

Buddhism Dharma Mind Map

From Mind map

Original pen version

Tags: spiritual, compassion, meditation, mind, equanimity, honesty, impermanence, joy, karma, love, nature, peace, Buddha, mind-map


Posted in Personal , Buddhism


Posted by skyleecm at 12:24 PM no comments

Monday, 2 May, 2011

The Conditioned and the Unconditioned

From The Mind And The Way by Ajahn Sumedho

The teaching of the Buddha is a very simple teaching, because it comprehends things in terms of the conditioned and the unconditioned. Conditioned phenomena are those which arise and pass away. They include everything that we perceive and know through our senses, through the body, feelings, thoughts, and memories. They are conditions; they begin and they end. The Pali term for the conditioned is sankhara. Sankhara includes all that arises and passes away, whether it is mental or physical. We are not quibbling about whether it is out there or in here, whether something arises and passes away in an instant or in an aeon. It does not make any difference as far as this way of meditating goes, because the conditioned includes all time-bound things.

The unconditioned is something that most people never realize because they are mesmerized by conditioned phenomena. To realize the unconditioned we have to let go of our constant attachment to conditioned phenomena.

The unconditioned is like the space in a room. When you come into a room, do you notice the space, or is your attention drawn to the objects in the room? You see the walls, the windows, the people, the furniture, the colors, and the decorations. But the space in the room is not noticeable, even though it is there all the time. And when we're busy watching all the people and the objects in the room, we don't notice the space at all. It is only when we let go of thinking, talking, considering, and imagining, that we become aware and we notice the space in the room. When we attend to it, we see that space is peaceful and boundless. Even the walls of the room do not limit space.

It's the same with the mind. The mind is unlimited and has no boundaries; it can contain everything. Yet we bind ourselves to the limited conditions of the mind -- our ideas, views, and opinions.

There is room enough in space for every theory, opinion, and view; they all arise and pass away, and there is no permanent condition. So there is room enough for everybody and everything, for every religion, every political view, every thought, every type of human being. And yet, humanity always wants to control and limit and say: "Only these we allow, and those do not have any right to be here." Trying to possess and hold on, we bind ourselves to conditions, which always take us to death and despair.

Whatever we hope and expect will cause us to feel disillusionment and despair, if we attach to it. This is because whatever we attach to arises and has to pass away. There is nothing that arises which keeps on arising; it can only arise for so long, and then it passes away. So when you bind yourself to any condition that is arising, it can only take you along with it as it passes away. When you attach to anything that is arising, such as your own physical body or any condition in nature, it will take you to death. And so death is the end of that which was born, and despair is the other side of hope and expectation.

As soon as anything becomes unpleasant or unsatisfactory, we tend to jump into some other condition, into something that is arising. This makes life a constant search for pleasure, romance, and adventure. People are always running after that which is interesting or fascinating and running away from the opposite. We run from boredom, despair, old age, sickness, and death because these are conditions that we do not want to be with. We want to get away from them, forget them, not notice them.

But in meditation, the attitude is to be infinitely patient with conditions, even when they become unpleasant or boring. If we're always running off to find something more interesting, we just keep going round in circles. This is called the cycle of Samsara.


When we notice that the conditions of body and mind are just the way conditions are, it's a simple recognition. It's not an analysis, and it's not anything special. It's just a bare recognition, a direct knowing that whatever arises passes away. Knowing in this way demands a certain amount of patience; otherwise, as soon as any fear, anger, or unpleasantness arises, we will run away from it. So meditation is also the ability to endure, and bear with, the unpleasant. We don't seek it out; we are not ascetics looking for painful things to endure so that we can prove ourselves. We're simply recognizing the way it is right now.


Whenever we recognize desire -- whether it is good or bad -- we are using wisdom. Only wisdom can see desire; desire cannot see wisdom. So when you are trying to find wisdom, just know desire. Watching the movement of desire lets us see its nature as a changing condition. And we see that it is not self.

Buddha-wisdom is something that we use in our meditation, not something we attain. It's a humbling kind of wisdom; it's not fantastic. It's the simple wisdom of knowing that whatever arises passes away and is not self. It is knowing that the desires going through our minds are just that -- they are desires, and they are not us.

Buddha-wisdom is that which knows the conditioned as the conditioned and the unconditioned as the unconditioned. It's as simple as that. You just have to know two things: the conditioned and the unconditioned. When you are meditating, don't try to attain, but just open up to your intention for meditating. When you suddenly awaken to the fact that you are trying to get something out of it, that is a moment of enlightenment.


Related:
Rebirth Based on Desire

Tags: Buddha, mind, meditation, book


Posted in Personal , Buddhism


Posted by skyleecm at 13:19 PM 1 comments

Sunday, 1 May, 2011

Rebirth Based on Desire

From The Mind And The Way by Ajahn Sumedho

Thus, we experience three kinds of desire: kama tanha, the desire for sense pleasures or sensory experience; bhava tanha, the desire for becoming; and vibhava tanha, the desire for annihilation. These three kinds of desire are the causes of rebirth. In fact, it's desire that's being reborn. In heedless beings -- those who are not awake, who do not understand truth, and who are not mindful -- the rebirth process carries on and on and on and on. It continues in the sense worlds, the realms of sensory or intellectual pleasures.

We can watch this rebirth process in our own minds. What is it that goes from the refrigerator to the television set? Is that a person? Is that what your soul is, your true essence that is going to be carried on through eternity? Or is it desire? Isn't it just an aimless wandering, a habitual search for something to do, something to absorb into?

You can watch desire in your own mind. When you are frightened, you can see yourself looking for something certain. When you don't know what to do, you can feel the momentum of desire looking for any old thing of interest. You start picking up things, twiddling your thumbs -- just to be doing something. This constant activity is just the force of habit, isn't it? You don't really know what you're doing most of the time; you just do these things out of habit.

We like to absorb into things that have glamour and excitement. So we go to war films to be excited. When we see a newspaper headline about atrocity, rape, or murder, we think we've got to read that. Violence and sex, all these things are exciting. Excitement is very compelling; it has a frantic vibration. It's easy to absorb into something exciting because excitement has its own kind of energy. You can be energized through the exciting conditions around you. Yet, when you look at excitement, you see that it keeps you in a state of constant movement. Too much adventure, romance, and excitement just wears you out because you get so caught in it. You're pulled along by it, and you have no way to resist or let go of it. If you have no wisdom, you just get pulled along into one rebirth after another. These rebirths -- based on desire -- are the ones you can witness through meditation. When you see them, you understand what rebirth is.

If you understand rebirth on the everyday level, you'll appreciate how it must operate at the time of death. The last wish of a person, if they're heedless and full of desire, is probably to be reborn again, to find another human birth, to find some womb to jump into. This is desire; it operates as an energy in the universe.

The desire for rebirth at the time of death is a desire to be reborn again in the human form. We can only know this through watching how our own minds work. If you were dying and you didn't want to die, what would be the most likely thing to arise in your mind? It would be a desire to cling to some form of life. Some passion of your life would arise in your dying moment, and that desire would be for some form of materialization. The momentum of your habits are always materializing in forms, aren't they? You're always seeking what you desire, either a sense desire, or an intellectual desire, or a desire to repress something you don't like.

But if are mindful when you die, if there's no longing to have another birth or to take some action, what is there to be reborn again? If you're at peace with the dying process of your body, what can be reborn? Because there is no desire, there is only mindfulness and wisdom. Then there is release, surrender, and liberation from the heaviness of the human body.


Question: If there's no self or soul in the Buddhist way of seeing things, who or what is getting reborn? Who or what gets the results of good or bad deeds?

Answer: Well you see, in the ultimate sense, there's nobody to get reborn and nobody to get the results. What gets reborn are desires repeating themselves. Out of ignorance, these desires are created, and they give the impression of somebody who has problems, somebody who is unhappy or depressed. Because of these desires, it seems as if life should be something other than what it is. The rebirth process is not anybody's; it's just a process of casual conditions.

With mindfulness, you realize that the results of birth and past actions happen this way. And if you keep mindful of that fact, you don't create anybody to get born again. You don't create the illusion of anyone who's receiving anything, becoming anything, or being punished for anything. It's merely that the present moment is the result of past action. If we are not ignorant, we don't suffer from the present conditions that we're experiencing. This is very hard to understand from the personal view, so popular Buddhism teaches simply: if you do good, you receive good; if you do bad, you receive bad; therefore, you should do good and not do bad. This is a conventional way of talking.

But as one continues to practice, the understanding of Dhamma increases, and one is more aware of the true nature of things. Then, the idea of receiving good or receiving bad no longer makes sense. At that stage, there's no longer a question of doing good or doing bad. One acts on opportunities to do good, but the motivation is not based on the idea that anyone's going to receive anything for it. And one has no inclination to do bad things, because evil only has an attractive quality when there is the basic delusion of self. When that self-delusion is relinquished, then there are no problems left. There's the doing of good, but it's done because that's what's right, what's appropriate. It's not done for personal gain or benefit.

Question: So are you saying that, in the wise person, the goodness is just natural? There's no feeling that you have to do good -- it's just a natural response to situations?

Answer: Yes, this natural response is in contrast to the impulsiveness that comes from ignorance. Without wisdom, we have impulses that we either follow or suppress. With wisdom, there's the spontaneity of responding to life from a universal pure mind, rather than from a personal idea of somebody who has to be good because they'll be punished if they're bad.

Tags: Buddha, mind, karma, book


Posted in Personal , Buddhism


Posted by skyleecm at 12:31 PM no comments

Sunday, 6 March, 2011

Surrounded by Fire

From Nokia new CEO Stephen Elop internal memo on the sinking of Nokia. (engadget)

There is a pertinent story about a man who was working on an oil platform in the North Sea. He woke up one night from a loud explosion, which suddenly set his entire oil platform on fire. In mere moments, he was surrounded by flames. Through the smoke and heat, he barely made his way out of the chaos to the platform's edge. When he looked down over the edge, all he could see were the dark, cold, foreboding Atlantic waters.

As the fire approached him, the man had mere seconds to react. He could stand on the platform, and inevitably be consumed by the burning flames. Or, he could plunge 30 meters in to the freezing waters. The man was standing upon a "burning platform," and he needed to make a choice.

He decided to jump. It was unexpected. In ordinary circumstances, the man would never consider plunging into icy waters. But these were not ordinary times - his platform was on fire. The man survived the fall and the waters. After he was rescued, he noted that a "burning platform" caused a radical change in his behaviour.

We too, are standing on a "burning platform," and we must decide how we are going to change our behaviour.


Our world is burning too!
Burning with the fire of passion, the fire of aversion, the fire of delusion. (The Fire Sermon)
The fire is sustained by our clinging. (Clinging)

One's Own Mind

"If, on examination of one's own mind, a monk knows, 'I usually remain covetous, with thoughts of ill will, overcome by sloth&drowsiness, restless, uncertain, angry, with soiled thoughts, with my body aroused, lazy, or unconcentrated,' then he should put forth extra desire, effort, diligence, endeavor, relentlessness, mindfulness,&alertness for the abandoning of those very same evil, unskillful qualities. Just as when a person whose turban or head was on fire would put forth extra desire, effort, diligence, endeavor, relentlessness, mindfulness,& alertness to put out the fire on his turban or head; in the same way, the monk should put forth extra desire, effort, diligence, endeavor, relentlessness, mindfulness, & alertness for the abandoning of those very same evil, unskillful qualities.

"But if, on examination, a monk knows, 'I usually remain uncovetous, without thoughts of ill will, free of sloth & drowsiness, not restless, gone beyond uncertainty, not angry, with unsoiled thoughts, with my body unaroused, with persistence aroused, & concentrated,' then his duty is to make an effort in maintaining those very same skillful qualities to a higher degree for the ending of the effluents."


Related:
Access to the Buddha's Words

Tags: Buddha, mind, story, sutta, resource


Posted in Personal , Buddhism


Posted by skyleecm at 03:35 AM no comments

Wednesday, 23 June, 2010

Access to the Buddha's Words

This is a compilation of suttas (links to Access to Insight Tipitaka translation.) that are referenced in Bhikkhu Bodhi's book, In the Buddha's Words.

 A PDF file of the table of contents and Chapter 1 can be downloaded from Wisdom Publications.

In the Buddha's Words

An Anthology of Discourses from the Pali Canon

I. The Human Condition

Introduction

  1. Old Age, Illness, and Death

    1. Aging and Death (SN 3:3)
    2. The Simile of the Mountain (SN 3:25)
    3. The Divine Messengers (from AN 3:35)

  2. The Tribulations of Unreflective Living

    1. The Dart of Painful Feeling (SN 36:6)
    2. The Vicissitudes of Life (AN 8:6)
    3. Anxiety Due to Change (SN 22:7)

  3. A World in Turmoil

    1. The Origin of Conflict (AN 2: iv, 6, abridged)
    2. Why Do Beings Live in Hate? (from DN 21)
    3. The Dark Chain of Causation (from DN 15)
    4. The Roots of Violence and Oppression (from AN 3:69)

  4. Without Discoverable Beginning

    1. Grass and Sticks (SN 15:1)
    2. Balls of Clay (SN 15:2)
    3. The Mountain (SN 15:5)
    4. The River Ganges (SN 15:8)
    5. Dog on a Leash (SN 22:99)

II. The Bringer of Light

Introduction

  1. One Person (AN 1: xiii, 1, 5, 6)

  2. The Buddha’s Conception and Birth (MN 123, abridged)

  3. The Quest for Enlightenment

    1. Seeking the Supreme State of Sublime Peace (from MN 26)
    2. The Realization of the Three True Knowledges (from MN 36)
    3. The Ancient City (SN 12:65)

  4. The Decision to Teach (from MN 26)

  5. The First Discourse (SN 56:11)

III. Approaching the Dhamma

Introduction

  1. Not a Secret Doctrine (AN 3:129)

  2. No Dogmas or Blind Belief (AN 3:65)

  3. The Visible Origin and Passing Away of Suffering (SN 42:11)

  4. Investigate the Teacher Himself (MN 47)

  5. Steps toward the Realization of Truth (from MN 95)

IV. The Happiness Visible in This Present Life

Introduction

  1. Upholding the Dhamma in Society

    1. The King of the Dhamma (AN 3:14)
    2. Worshipping the Six Directions (from DN 31)

  2. The Family

    1. Parents and Children

    2. Husbands and Wives

  3. Present Welfare, Future Welfare (AN 8:54)

  4. Right Livelihood

    1. Avoiding Wrong Livelihood (AN 5:177)
    2. The Proper Use of Wealth (AN 4:61)
    3. A Family Man’s Happiness (AN 4:62)

  5. The Woman of the Home (AN 8:49)

  6. The Community

    1. Six Roots of Dispute (from MN 104)
    2. Six Principles of Cordiality (from MN 104)
    3. Purification Is for All Four Castes (MN 93, abridged)
    4. Seven Principles of Social Stability (from DN 16)
    5. The Wheel-Turning Monarch (from DN 26)
    6. Bringing Tranquillity to the Land (from DN 5)

V. The Way to a Fortunate Rebirth

Introduction

  1. The Law of Kamma

    1. Four Kinds of Kamma (AN 4:232)
    2. Why Beings Fare as They Do after Death (MN 41)
    3. Kamma and Its Fruits (MN 135)

  2. Merit: The Key to Good Fortune

    1. Meritorious Deeds (It 22)
    2. Three Bases of Merit (AN 8:36)
    3. The Best Kinds of Confidence (AN 4:34)

  3. Giving

    1. If People Knew the Result of Giving (It 26)
    2. Reasons for Giving (AN 8:33)
    3. The Gift of Food (AN 4:57)
    4. A Superior Person’s Gifts (AN 5:148)
    5. Mutual Support (It 107)
    6. Rebirth on Account of Giving (AN 8:35)

  4. Moral Discipline

    1. The Five Precepts (AN 8:39)
    2. The Uposatha Observance (AN 8:41)

  5. Meditation

    1. The Development of Loving-Kindness (It 27)
    2. The Four Divine Abodes (from MN 99)
    3. Insight Surpasses All (AN 9:20, abridged)

VI. Deepening One’s Perspective on the World

Introduction

  1. Four Wonderful Things (AN 4:128)

  2. Gratification, Danger, and Escape

    1. Before My Enlightenment (AN 3:101 §§1–2)
    2. I Set Out Seeking (AN 3:101 §3)
    3. If There Were No Gratification (AN 3:102)

  3. Properly Appraising Objects of Attachment (MN 13)

  4. The Pitfalls in Sensual Pleasures

    1. Cutting Off All Affairs (from MN 54)
    2. The Fever of Sensual Pleasures (from MN 75)

  5. Life Is Short and Fleeting (AN 7:70)

  6. Four Summaries of the Dhamma (from MN 82)

  7. The Danger in Views

    1. A Miscellany on Wrong View (AN 1: xvii, 1, 3, 7, 9)
    2. The Blind Men and the Elephant (Ud 6:4)
    3. Held by Two Kinds of Views (It 49)

  8. From the Divine Realms to the Infernal (AN 4:125)

  9. The Perils of Samsara

    1. The Stream of Tears (SN 15:3)
    2. The Stream of Blood (SN 15:13)

VII. The Path to Liberation

Introduction

  1. Why Does One Enter the Path?

    1. The Arrow of Birth, Aging, and Death (MN 63)
    2. The Heartwood of the Spiritual Life (MN 29)
    3. The Fading Away of Lust (SN 45:41–48, combined)

  2. Analysis of the Eightfold Path (SN 45:8)

  3. Good Friendship (SN 45:2)

  4. The Graduated Training (MN 27)

  5. The Higher Stages of Training with Similes (from MN 39)

VIII. Mastering the Mind

Introduction

  1. The Mind Is the Key (AN 1: iii, 1, 2, 3, 4, 9, 10)

  2. Developing a Pair of Skills

    1. Serenity and Insight (AN 2: iii, 10)
    2. Four Ways to Arahantship (AN 4:170)
    3. Four Kinds of Persons (AN 4:94)

  3. The Hindrances to Mental Development (SN 46:55, abridged)

  4. The Refinement of the Mind (AN 3:100 §§1–10)

  5. The Removal of Distracting Thoughts (MN 20)

  6. The Mind of Loving-Kindness (from MN 21)

  7. The Six Recollections (AN 6:10)

  8. The Four Establishments of Mindfulness (MN 10)

  9. Mindfulness of Breathing (SN 54:13)

  10. The Achievement of Mastery (SN 28:1–9, combined)

IX. Shining the Light of Wisdom

Introduction

  1. Images of Wisdom

    1. Wisdom as a Light (AN 4:143)
    2. Wisdom as a Knife (from MN 146)

  2. The Conditions for Wisdom (AN 8:2, abridged)

  3. A Discourse on Right View (MN 9)

  4. The Domain of Wisdom

    1. By Way of the Five Aggregates

    2. By Way of the Six Sense Bases

      • Full Understanding (SN 35:26)
      • Burning (SN 35:28)
      • Suitable for Attaining Nibbana (SN 35:147–49, combined)
      • Empty Is the World (SN 35:85)
      • Consciousness Too Is Nonself (SN 35:234)

    3. By Way of the Elements

      • The Eighteen Elements (SN 14:1)
      • The Four Elements (SN 14:37–39, combined)
      • The Six Elements (from MN 140)

    4. By Way of Dependent Origination

    5. By Way of the Four Noble Truths

      • The Truths of All Buddhas (SN 56:24)
      • These Four Truths Are Actual (SN 56:20)
      • A Handful of Leaves (SN 56:31)
      • Because of Not Understanding (SN 56:21)
      • The Precipice (SN 56:42)
      • Making the Breakthrough (SN 56:32)
      • The Destruction of the Taints (SN 56:25)

  5. The Goal of Wisdom

    1. What is Nibbana? (SN 38:1)
    2. Thirty-Three Synonyms for Nibbana (SN 43:1–44, combined)
    3. There Is That Base (Ud 8:1)
    4. The Unborn (Ud 8:3)
    5. The Two Nibbana Elements (It 44)
    6. The Fire and the Ocean (from MN 72)

X. The Planes of Realization

Introduction

  1. The Field of Merit for the World

    1. Eight Persons Worthy of Gifts (AN 8:59)
    2. Differentiation by Faculties (SN 48:18)
    3. In the Dhamma Well Expounded (from MN 22)
    4. The Completeness of the Teaching (from MN 73)
    5. Seven Kinds of Noble Persons (from MN 70)

  2. Stream-Entry

    1. The Four Factors Leading to Stream-Entry (SN 55:5)
    2. Entering the Fixed Course of Rightness (SN 25:1)
    3. The Breakthrough to the Dhamma (SN 13:1)
    4. The Four Factors of a Stream-Enterer (SN 55:2)
    5. Better than Sovereignty over the Earth (SN 55:1)

  3. Nonreturning

    1. Abandoning the Five Lower Fetters (from MN 64)
    2. Four Kinds of Persons (AN 4:169)
    3. Six Things that Partake of True Knowledge (SN 55:3)
    4. Five Kinds of Nonreturners (SN 46:3)

  4. The Arahant

    1. Removing the Residual Conceit “I Am” (SN 22:89)
    2. The Trainee and the Arahant (SN 48:53)
    3. A Monk Whose Crossbar Has Been Lifted (from MN 22)
    4. Nine Things an Arahant Cannot Do (from AN 9:7)
    5. A Mind Unshaken (from AN 9:26)
    6. The Ten Powers of an Arahant Monk (AN 10:90)
    7. The Sage at Peace (from MN 140)
    8. Happy Indeed Are the Arahants (from SN 22:76)

  5. The Tathagata

    1. The Buddha and the Arahant (SN 22:58)
    2. For the Welfare of Many (It 84)
    3. Sariputta’s Lofty Utterance (SN 47:12)
    4. The Powers and Grounds of Self-Confidence (from MN 12)
    5. The Manifestation of Great Light (SN 56:38)
    6. The Man Desiring Our Good (from MN 19)
    7. The Lion (SN 22:78)
    8. Why Is He Called the Tathagata? (AN 4:23 = It 112)


Emptiness

Tags: book, Buddha, karma, meditation, story, sutta, resource


Posted in Buddhism


Posted by skyleecm at 08:13 AM 1 comments

Sunday, 16 May, 2010

The Green Buddha of The Grotto

From The Buddha In The Jungle by Kamala Tiyavanich.

The Green Buddha of The Grotto

Western Explorers and thudong monks who traveled through the forests of Siam and Laos often saw Buddha images, large and small, in sacred caves. Between 1881 and 1893, when James McCarthy was conducting surveys for Siam's government that took him all over the north, he investigated many caves. When he was in Nan, a principality in northern Siam ringed by high mountains, McCarthy wrote, "We visited the cave opposite the mouth of the Nam U, the ascent to which was made easy by a flight of steps. It was not very large but contained from one to two hundred images, varying from 3 inches to as many feet. A beautiful little pagoda built within looked charming in the glorious sunlight." Local people generally believed that many of the Buddha images in the caves had been there since ancient times. Upon entering a cave or a wat they usually paid homage to the Buddha images there. Villagers did not keep Buddha images in their homes. In the days when village life was not yet ruled by money, it was unthinkable that anyone should wish to remove images from caves or monasteries.

Unlike devout villagers, Westerners who came upon Buddha images in caves had no fear of guardian spirits. Those who wished to take a few images home with them did so without scruple. A Dutchman identified only by his last name, Klaasen, came to Northern Siam during the first decade of the twentieth century when the mountains and jungles were still formidable places. Klaasen, who lived and worked in Siam for thirty-five years, was not an antique hunter and knew the law forbidding the removal of religious statuary, but when he saw a green jade Buddha image in a jungle cave somewhere beyond Chiang Mai, he could not resist the temptation to take it.

Many years later, in the 1950s, Klaasen met Ludwig Koch-Isenburg, a German zoologist, at a hotel in northern Thailand. The Dutchman proposed a trek to the cave. Klaasen, who knew his way around, persuaded a government official in Chiang Mai to give them permission to stay at a solitary forest rangers' station high up in the mountains. Koch-Isenburg, who wrote about their trek, described the scene .. ..

"We had come to the bottom of a wide ravine whose floor was completely covered by a shallow, crystalline stream. Holding our shoes in our hands, we leaped from stone to stone in the bed of the river. ... The ravine narrowed." Suddenly, he cried out in amazement. "A gigantic recumbent Buddha had been carved out of the rock. One arm was outstretched along the body, the other was propping up the head; the eyes gazed, mysterious and unfathomable, into the timeless green and golden virgin jungle. .. I realize that we had entered a mighty grotto in the rock. In front of the Buddha's face stood a vessel containing rods of incense, and I saw with some surprise that my Dutch friend was lighting them. .. "

Klaasen led Koch-Isenburg to a little niche in the rock at the feet of the Buddha. "Carefully he picked up a carving that stood there and handed it to me. I stared spellbound at the ancient image. .. .. A tremendous feeling of happiness surged through me. I felt a deep sense of gratitude, though I could not have said for what." The Dutchman then told the German scientist that the statue had this effect "upon everyone who sees it". Klaasen next confessed that he had once been so "overwhelmed" by it that he "became a thief".

In the 1920s, Klaasen told his young friend, " ... ... I had to fight a terrible battle with myself," he told his companion, "before I reached out my hands and plucked the statue from the spot where it had probably stood for centuries. ... And in fact, the very moment I put the sculpture into my pack, I thought I heard a burst of insane laughter. ..."

After reasoning that he would soon be returning to Holland, where avenging spirits could not follow him, he found no peace. He bought a small statuette of Buddha made of solid gold. Its money value, Klaasen said, "must be approximately the same as the value of the stolen jade Buddha ... We materialistic Westerns think we can balance everything by arithmetic and pay for anything on earth. I travelled back all that enormous distance and set the gold Buddha in the empty place on the altar. But this act of restitution did not buy me inner peace. Nevertheless, a few months later, I was ready to start for Holland, and by that time I had at least regained enough peace of mind so that I could sleep at night."

Klaasen succeeded in smuggling the statue out of the country, but "back in misty Holland, whenever I looked at my Buddha," he said, "I felt a stabbing pain in my chest. What an earthly paradise I had given up! I would sit lost in thought for hours, and all the magic beauty of that ravine in the jungle would pour through my heart."

After working out a new contract with his firm, Klaasen returned to Siam. As soon as he could get away from his job, he traveled back to the north. He had decided to return the green Buddha to its home. "By now it had become completely clear that I must return my stolen Buddha to the sanctuary if I were ever to be a free man again."

The closer he got to the cave temple the better the Dutchman began to feel. But when he entered the grotto, he said, he "sprang back in horror. Before the altar an ancient monk in yellow robe was kneeling. The pedestal of the jade Buddha, on which I had placed the golden image, was empty. The monk rose as if he had sensed my presence and came toward me. His eyes held a look of infinite kindness as he bowed his head and raised his clasped hands to his forehead in greeting. Like a sinner caught in the act, I stood before the man. The stolen Buddha burned like fire in my hands, and, acting under a mysterious compulsion, I held it out to him. A repressed smile played around his lips - or so it seemed to me - and quietly, as though it were the most natural thing in the world, he turned and replaced the statue on its pedestal."

The monk said quietly, "I have waited for you, Brother."

Klaasen learned that the monk, a hermit, had watched the theft from his cave in the rocks above the grotto. He could have stopped Klaasen, "But true to the rules of his religion, with its respect for others," the Dutchman told the German, "he had let me commit the robbery. He could have called out to me, but had he done so the farang [Westerner] would have lost face, would have been shamed."

Taking a deep breath, Klaasen revealed to his German companion that he then became a Buddhist and for a long while "wore the yellow robe and trudged about the country with the begging bowl," returning to the gorge from time to time. "All our European haste and disquiet has fallen away from me. I have come to realize that quiet equanimity is the highest good that we can achieve in this life," the Dutchman concluded.


Tags: book, monk, story, Buddha, peace, equanimity, cave, Thailand


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Posted by skyleecm at 16:01 PM no comments

Sunday, 16 May, 2010

Two Legs Monastery

From The Buddha In The Jungle by Kamala Tiyavanich.


Throughout his years of wandering Ajan Butda was often invited to villagers' houses to perform Buddhist ceremonies and give sermons. One day, as he was approaching a village, a man ran up to him and asked the monk, "Which is your wat?" (wat = temple-monastery) Ajan Butda replied, "Wat Song Kha [= Two Legs Monastery]. Wherever my two legs stand, that is my wat." In the context of the Dhamma, the two legs symbolize wisdom and compassion.

Like his village teachers, who studied local religious literature, including the Jataka stories, Ajan Butda believed that Gotama Buddha practiced paramis over many successive lives as a bodhisat before he was able to attain enlightenment. By the turn of the twentieth century the Bangkok elite of his day no longer believed that the Jataka stories had been narrated by the Buddha. Ajan Butda, however, was convinced that the Buddha had been a bodhisat in his former lives.

.. ..

On another occasion Ajan Butda was invited to give a sermon at a wedding in rural Thailand. Unlike Protestant ministers, Catholic priests, and Jewish rabbis, Buddhist monks do not normally perform wedding ceremonies. Customarily a marriage was performed by a layman versed in traditional rituals or by a respected elder. On their wedding day the bride and groom made merit by offering food to monks and inviting the most senior monk to give a sermon and offer blessings for the couple's happiness. Sometimes nine monks were invited, as nine was considered an auspicious number. These nine, together with the Buddha image, made ten, an even number considered auspicious for a wedding. On this day four couples were getting married at the same time, and Ajan Butda was invited to give a sermon.

Instead of the usual sermon about how a husband should minister to his wife and how she should reciprocate, Ajan Butda talked about supramundane happiness, the pure happiness of liberation from greed, delusion, and aversion. As Ajan Butda went on describing the joys of renunciation, the brides and the bridegrooms began to have doubts about embarking upon the married life. By the time he finished his sermon the couples-to-be had made up their minds not to enter the householder's life.

Instead of offering blessings at the wedding ceremony, the monk was asked to perform ordinations for the grooms and brides who now wished to become bhikkhus and mae chi (white-robed renunciants). Some of the grandfathers and grandmothers of the brides and grooms were so moved by Ajan Butda's teaching that they also wished to ordain along with their grandchildren. Unfortunately, since Bangkok authorities did not recognize Ajan Butda as a preceptor, he could not ordain them.
(also see Forest Recollections Wandering Monks in Twentieth-Century Thailand by Kamala Tiyavanich)

Tags: book, monk, story, Buddha, joy, marriage, wedding, Thailand


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Posted by skyleecm at 10:01 AM 4 comments