Awakening The Buddha Within - Lama Surya Das

last SG · 2006-03-15T18:44:48+00:00

Hi Paperflower, thanks for sharing with us much valuable and wonderful teachings

paperflower SG

Beginning and Ending the Day

when you wake each morning, start the day by reaffirming your intention to practice loving-kindness and compassion. remind yourself each day to work at letting go of ego-clinging, selfishness, controlling behaviour, negative thoughts, possessiveness, aggression, resentment and confusion. resolve each day to find one small way that you can change a frozen behaviour pattern, and try to do so......

paperflower SG

when you lie down at night, reflect on the day that was. remember your accomplishments and your fustrations - things done as well as undone. use clear discernment and discriminating awareness to genuinely examine your behaviour and the quality of your life. recognise your familiar repetitive patterns. assess how fruitful they actually are.......

paperflower SG

finally, examine your day for lingering resentments and self-destructive, harmful, egocentric or narcissistic thoughts. find joy in awakening the noble-hearted spirit of bodhicitta.

rejoice in all the good works of both others and yourself and share in all that good karma. it will help you find rest.

then rest. "done is what had to be done," as the Buddha said.

paperflower SG

'wait, wait," a follower once cried after the Buddha as he disappeared into the forest.

"i stopped a long time ago," Buddha replied. "when will you stop?"

paperflower SG

Right Livelihood

Work is Love made Visible......

when you work you are a flute through whose heart the whispering of the hours turns to music. to love life through labour is to be intimate with life's inmost secret. all work is empty save when there is love, for work is love made visible.
- Kahlil Gibran

paperflower SG

for centuries Right Livelihood has asked us to love our world through our work, instructing us to avoid vocations that harm others.

anything that leads to harming or killing other beings, such as selling or making arms ammunition, and drug dealing or any other livelihood that is deceitful, unwholesome, corrupting, encourages heedlessness or is exploitative (of beings or the environment)..... are obvious examples of livelihoods traditionally considered inappropriate for an enlightened life.

junk bond trading is a new development in poor livelihood. in the past, as now, the preferred work is altruistic..... and furthers the spiritual life.

according to the ancient scripture, the Dhammapada, Right Livelihood is said to be "in tune with increasing helpfulness for beings and decreasing harmfulness".

paperflower SG

those who see the worldly life as an obstacle to Dharma see no Dharma in everyday actions; they have not yet discovered that there are no everyday actions outside of Dharma.

- The 13th Century Zen Master Dogen

paperflower SG

it doesn't help anyone to get too judgemental about different occupations. some may say that a doctor or nurse is more helpful to humanity than a banker or mortgage broker, but who really knows? an impeccable businessperson can do a lot of good.

it helps for each of us to stop for a moment and consider the many ways we can practice Right Livelihood.

paperflower SG

Right Livelihood - using our hands, our heads and our hearts to help others - no matter what we do for a living. Right Livelihood helps us make a life, not just a living. it affords us spiritual renewal right here and now, without going elsewhere.

paperflower SG

perfection is an ideal, difficult to find here on earth. every work situation is a little flawed, a little fraught with hypocrisies, compromises and egotism - sometimes even our own....

the workplace provides a rich arena for us to become more aware of our actions and intentions, as well as help us take some concrete steps on the spiritual path. working on ourselves as we work at our jobs can be self-transforming.

in this way, we learn the wise principles of "making lemonade from lemons we unexpectedly find on our plates".

paperflower SG

what is known in Buddhism as the "poison" or conflicting emotions (kleshas) that veil and cloud reality:

ignorance

pride

jealousy

enmity

desire

on some level just about every work situation is going to provoke at least some of these kleshas.

don't misinterpret the Dharma's message to mean that we should deny our feelings or be oblivious to the whole range of human experience. strong emotions are not primary issue; the primary issue is grasping and attachment.

when we cling to and grasp at passionate emotions, losing ourselves by too strongly identifying with them, they take over the mind, possess our thoughts and obscure our clear seeing - tarnishing our present awareness and clear vision.

neutral_onliner SG

Originally posted by paperflower:
what is known in Buddhism as the "poison" or conflicting emotions (kleshas) that veil and cloud reality:

ignorance

pride

jealousy

enmity

desire

on some level just about every work situation is going to provoke at least some of these kleshas.

[b]don't misinterpret the Dharma's message to mean that we should deny our feelings or be oblivious to the whole range of human experience. strong emotions are not primary issue; the primary issue is grasping and attachment.

when we cling to and grasp at passionate emotions, losing ourselves by too strongly identifying with them, they take over the mind, possess our thoughts and obscure our clear seeing - tarnishing our present awareness and clear vision.

[/b]

hmm... i see all tis posion in CASINO Cool

paperflower SG

Originally posted by neutral_onliner:

hmm... i see all tis [b]posion in CASINO Cool [/b]

Laughing you huh....

paperflower SG

The Eight Worldly Winds That Blow Us Off Course

the Eight Worldly Winds are actually four pairs. each pair representing opposite poles on a desire-aversion axis - in other words, what we want and what we don't want. two different yet totally inter-related forms of desire.

pleasure and pain

gain and loss

praise and blame

fame and shame

concern about and attachment to pleasure, gain, praise and fame are powerful forces that can sometimes seize us with hurricane ferocity.... blowing us about like leaves in the wind.

we've all seen people jeopardize life, limb, ethical considerations and contentment for the briefest of pleasures, the possibility of financial gain, the right kind of praise or for 15mins in the winner's circle of fame.

it's easy to respond to these driving forces with knee-jerk reactions and loss sight of our inner goals. we are distracted for only a second; nonetheless we get blown off course.

like a weight watcher slogan says, "a moment on the lips, a life-time on the hips." this is Dharma wisdom, the practical ethics of conscious restraint.

paperflower SG

true spiritual masters are so centered and inner-directed that no matter what is happening in the outer world, they don't lose touch with their innate Buddha-nature. they are guided by their own principles instead of merely reacting according to momentary conditions and temporary circumstances.

going through life with their hands on the steering wheel of awareness, they are paying attention; they understand karmic causation, how things actually work. many of the rest of us, of course are still gripping the rearview mirror and wondering why we so often end up lost or in the ditch.

it's easy to become so enmashed in our worldly goals that we lose sight of the bigger picture. the ups and downs of office politics and interpersonal dynamics will overly affect the untrained mind. one minute you can feel like a winner, the next you're in a slump.

when gods in the celestial realms use up their accumulation of good karma, even they must come back to earth; even superman can fall from the sky.

paperflower SG

the virtue of equanimity helps us not to become overly invested in success or unduly disrupted by disappoinment. commonsense wisdom reminds us that there is a difference between making a living and making a life.

our pursuit of worldly success in this thorny rosebush-like world can be no more satisfying than the pursuit of a mirage in the arid desert.

the Wisdom Sutra teach us to hear all sounds as echoes. all the words we hear from the outside world, including the praise and blame are empty and hollow.

several of Atisha's mind-training slogans that further re-inforce these teachings on the insubstantial nature of worldly success are:

"don't be best friend with pride and vanity"

"abandon all hope for rewards. don't expect applause"

"if we let go of the worldly values, will we seem foolish or nuts?"

"of the two witnesses, listen to your conscience"

paperflower SG

genuine Buddhist training helps each of us develop our own autonomy and inner self-mastery. rather than being overly influenced by and dependent on the opinions and reactions of others.

we learn to recognise everything as impermanent, ephemeral, intangible, dreamlike and unreal. we can grow away from dependence and co-dependence into healthy individuation; we can finally understand independence and interdependence.

everything you want from unduly attractions to pleasure, gain, fame or praise will eventually be washed away like sand-castles on the shore. tomorrow, you may not even want the same things you want today.

as the teacher Nyoshul Khenpo Rinpoche always says, "the mind is fickle, don't rely on it."

paperflower SG

remember the Buddha's example when he pointed to a middle way, balanced between the extremes of hedonistic self-indulgence and ascetic self-denial. he stressed sanity, moderation and a broad inclusive well-balanced golden mean.

reflecting on Buddhist wisdom, sooner or later we each should be able to come up with our own personally satisfying balance between need and greed.

it is eminently achievable.

the less we need, the richer we can be.

Tibetan teacher and hermit Patrul Rinpoche was known for his simple mendicant lifestyle and unconditional generosity. when queried about why he immediately distributed whatever alms were given to him, he replied, "one brick of tea is one brick of extra baggage. who needs more burdens to take on my way?"

the famous Buddhist philosopher Nagarjuna said that contentment is true wealth. success will not be found through the gratification of desire but in the end of desire - which is contentment.

wealthy is he who enjoys what he has.

paperflower SG

you don't have to be a card-carrying Buddhist to long for spiritual insight and guidance. Lama Surya Das' Indian guru, Neem Karoli Baba, always admonished his students to learn from everyone. no one has a corner on the market of truth. "all one" was his favourite maxim.

guru Neem Karoli Baba encouraged Lama Surya Das to serve and apprentice himself to all sages, seekers and saints, no matter what their denomination or belief system. for, it is the heart of the matter that counts - the living spirit, not just the letter, of the law.

the traditional elder, Kalu Rinpoche said that he didn't believe that a seeker of another religion had to convert to Buddhism in order to practice Dharma. the truth after all belongs to anyone who cherishes it, lives it, loves it and is committed to it.

paperflower SG

the living Buddha, the 16th Karmapa said, "if you have one hundred percent dedication and confidence in Dharma teachings, every living situations can be part of spiritual practice. you can be living in the practice instead of just doing it."

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