Daily Buddhist Verses

last SG · 2005-05-29T17:49:29+00:00

Our normal way of relating people is to see ourself as separate from the others.To objectify beings as separate you and make them an object of attachment is...

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Defiled by passion, the mind is not released. Defiled by ignorance, discerment does not develop. Thus from the fading of passion is there awareness-release. From the fading of ignorance is there discernment-release.

~ AN II.30

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A dog standing by a well saw it's own reflections inside it. Thinking that it was another dog, it started to bark ferociously at it. Of course the reflection barked back which angered the dog. Wanting to have a good fight with it's own reflection, it suddenly jumped into the well, killing itself instead.

~ Parable from sutra- Shuo Fa Jing

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I am a teacher of the spiritual path. I do my utmost to teach my disciples but whether they put into practice what they hear depends on their own effort.

~ Buddha

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The Buddha encouraged people to let go of resentment and the wish for vengeance. Today we hear a lot of people talking about justice, but what about mercy? Has everyone forgotten about mercy? Wasn't it said that justice ought to be tempered by mercy? And after all, who are we to determine what is justice? If we really believe in the All Mighty God of the Bible and the Koran, then it is surely God and only God who can decide what is just, and if instead we believe in the law of karma, then surely the effects of evil actions will mature in good time, so why worry about the actions of others?

~ Buddhist scholar, Peter Della Santina

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The Buddha emphasized concord is his pleasure, concord is his delight, concord is his joy, harmony is the motive of his speech, we try to unite those who are divided and encourage those who are united. Concord is spread by our words, and we rejoice and delight in this. We avoid harsh language and speak words that are gentle, soothing to the ear, loving, coming from and going to the heart. We avoid vain talk.

~ Bhante B Dhammaratana, The power of right speech

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Looking for peace is like looking for a turtle with a moustache: You won't be able to find it. But when your heart is ready, peace will come looking for you.

~ Ajahn Chah, Reflections

An Eternal Now SG

No desire to be or not to be

Self-knowledgeis not a process to be read about or speculated upon: it must be discovered by each one from moment to moment, so that the mind becomes extraordinarily alert. In that alertness there is a certain quiescence, a passive awareness in which there is no desire to be or not to be, and in which there is an astonishing sense of freedom. It may be only for a minute, for a secondthat is enough. That freedom is not of memory; it is a living thing, but the mind, having tasted it, reduces it to a memory and then wants more of it. To be aware of this total process is possible only through self-knowledge, and self-knowledge comes into being from moment to moment as we watch our speech, our gestures, the way we talk, and the hidden motives that are suddenly revealed. Then only is it possible to be free from fear. As long as there is fear, there is no love. Fear darkens our being and that fear cannot be washed away by any prayer, by any ideal or activity. The cause of fear is the me, the me which is so complex in its desires, wants, pursuits. The mind has to understand that whole process, and the understanding of it comes only when there is watchfulness without choice.

The Collected Works, Vol. VII - 327

~ J Krishnamurti

An Eternal Now SG

Sense Restraint

"And how does a monk guard the doors of his senses? On seeing a form with the eye, he does not grasp at any theme or details by which if he were to dwell without restraint over the faculty of the eye evil, unskillful qualities such as greed or distress might assail him. On hearing a sound with the ear... On smelling an odor with the nose... On tasting a flavor with the tongue... On touching a tactile sensation with the body... On cognizing an idea with the intellect, he does not grasp at any theme or details by which if he were to dwell without restraint over the faculty of the intellect evil, unskillful qualities such as greed or distress might assail him. Endowed with this noble restraint over the sense faculties, he is inwardly sensitive to the pleasure of being blameless. This is how a monk guards the doors of his senses.

An Eternal Now SG

One day the world-honoured one (Sakyamuni Buddha) ascended his seat. Manjusri struck the gavel and said, “Clearly behold the Dharma of the King of the Dharma; the Dharma of the King of the Dharma is ‘just this.’

An Eternal Now SG

Maya, however, is not an unreality because it only has the appearance of reality; all things have the nature of Maya. It is not because all things are imagined and clung to because of the multitudinous-ness of individual signs that they are like Maya; it is because they are alike unreal and as quickly appearing and disappearing. Being attached to erroneous thoughts they confuse and contradict themselves and others. As they do not clearly grasp the fact that the world is no more than Mind* itself, they imagine and cling to causation, work, birth and individual signs, and their thoughts are characterized by error and false-imaginations. The teaching that all things are characterized by the self-nature of Maya and a dream is meant to make the ignorant and simple-minded cast aside the idea of self-nature in anything.

~ Lankavatara Sutra

* First of all we have to understand that what is meant by All is Mind is different from what is meant by All is Perception. Wei-Xin-Lun (Mind-Only Doctrine) is not the same as Wei-Shi-Lun (Consciousness-Only Doctrine). When we say that you are young till now. Lets say you are an old person. Everything that you experience, and everything that you touch, feel, or experience from an experiential point of view is the Mind. This means every single thoughts, every single things, including when you scoop the sand, when you touch the sand, and when you feel the texture of the sand, is the Mind. This is the kind of experience that Lankavatara Sutra is talking about. So do not confuse that hey, it is a thought in your mind. No it is not talking about this. Many people misunderstand this. It is not talking about this. So first, we must be very clear that it is this experience that they are talking about. It is the experience that is Non-Duality. ~ Thusness

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The Triple Jewels are also represented by the images of Buddhas, sutras, and monks and nuns. They are to remind us of the need to return and rely on the Triple Jewels of our self-nature.

~ Ven. Master Chin kung

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The image of a monk or nun, whether or not he or she has abided by the precepts, reminds us to keep our six senses from becoming polluted.

~ Ven. Master Chin Kung, Buddhism: the Wisdom of Compassion and Awakening

An Eternal Now SG

...After the jungle, there is an intensely odd and very beau-tiful quality to the experience of life. In one sense I can only describe everything, all experience, as having a certain emptiness. This is the sense in which everything used to matter, to be vital and important, and is now seen as unreal, empty, not important, an illusion. Once it is seen that the beyond-brilliance of Sat Chit Ananda is all that is, the dream continues as a kind of shadow. Yet, at the same moment that all of what appears in the dream is experi-enced as empty, it is also seen as more deeply beautiful and perfect than ever imagined, precisely because it is not other than Sat Chit Ananda, than all that is. Everything that does not matter, that is empty illusion, is at the same time itself the beyond-brilliance, the perfect beauty. Somehow there is a balance; these two apparently opposite aspects do not cancel each other out but complement each other. This makes no 'sense,' yet it is how it is.

There is one tradition within Advaita which says that maya, the manifestation of the physical universe, is over-laid or superimposed on Sat Chit Ananda. I'm no scholar of these things, and can only attempt to describe what is seen here; and the Understanding here is that there is no question of one thing superimposed on another. Maya, the manifestation, the physical universe, is precisely Sat Chit Ananda, is not other than it, does not exist on its own as something separate to be overlaid on top of something else. This is the whole point! There is no maya! The only reason it appears to have its own reality and is commonly taken to be real in itself is because of a misperceiving, a mistaken perception which sees the appearance and not What Is. This is the meaning of Huang Po's comment that "no distinction should be made between the Absolute and the sentient world." No distinction! There is only One. There is not ever in any sense two. All perception of distinction and separation, all perception of duality, and all perception of what is known as physical reality, is mind-created illu-sion. When a teacher points at the physical world and says, "All this is maya," what is being said is that what you are seeing is illusion; what all this is is All That Is, pure Being Consciousness Bliss Outpouring; it is your perception of it as a physical world that is maya, illusion...

~ David Carse

An Eternal Now SG

All Buddhas and all ordinary beings are nothing but the one mind. This mind is beginningless and endless, unborn and indestructible. It has no color or shape, neither exists nor doesn't exist, isn't old or new, long or short, large or small, since it transcends all measures, limits, names, and comparisons. It is what you see in front of you.

Start to think about it and immediately you are mistaken. It is like the boundless void, which can't be fathomed or measured. The one mind is the Buddha, and there is no distinction between Buddha and ordinary beings, except that ordinary beings are attached to forms and thus seek for Buddhahood outside themselves. By this very seeking they lose it, since they are using Buddha to seek for Buddha, using mind to seek for mind. Even if they continue for a million eons, they will never be able to find it. They don't know that all they have to do is put a stop to conceptual thinking, and the Buddha will appear before them, because this mind is the Buddha and the Buddha is all living beings. It is not any less for being manifested in ordinary things, nor any greater for being manifested in Buddhas.

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This pure mind, which is the source of all things, shines forever with the radiance of its own perfection. But most people are not aware of it, and think that mind is just the faculty that sees, hears, feels, and knows. Blinded by their own sight, hearing, feeling, and knowing, they don't perceive the radiance of the source. If they could eliminate all conceptual thinking, this source would appear, like the sun rising through the empty sky and illuminating the whole universe. Therefore, you students of the Tao who seek to understand through seeing, hearing, feeling, and knowing, when your perceptions are cut off, your way to mind will be cut off and you will find nowhere to enter. Just realize that although mind is manifested in these perceptions, it is neither part of them nor separate from them. You shouldn't try to analyze these perceptions, or think about them at all; but you shouldn't seek the one mind apart from them. Don't hold on to them or leave them behind or dwell in them or reject them. Above, below, and all around you, all things spontaneously exist, because there is nowhere outside the Buddha mind.

~ Zen Master Huang Po

An Eternal Now SG

The Real Buddha

People perform a vast number of complex practices
hoping to gain spiritual merit as countless as the grains
of sand on the riverbed of the Ganges:
but you are essentially already perfect in every way.
Dont try and augment perfection with meaningless practice.
If its the right occasion to perform them, let practices happen.
When the time has passed, let them stop.
If you are not absolutely sure that mind is the Buddha,
and if you are attached to the ideas of winning merit from spiritual practices, then your thinking is misguided and not in harmony with the Way.
To practice complex spiritual practices is to progress step by step:
but the eternal Buddha is not a Buddha of progressive stages.
Just awaken to the one Mind,
and there is absolutely nothing to be attained.
This is the real Buddha.

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Enlightenment

When practitioners of Zen fail to transcend
the world of their senses and thoughts,
all they do has no value.
Yet, when senses and thoughts are obliterated
all the roads to universal mind are blocked
and there is no entrance.
The primal mind has to be recognised along with the senses and thoughts.
It neither belongs to them nor is independent of them.
Dont build your understanding on your senses and thoughts,
yet dont look for the mind separate from your senses and thoughts.
Dont attempt to grasp Reality by pushing away your senses
and thoughts.
Unobstructed freedom is to be neither attached not detached.
This is enlightenment.

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The Buddha and all sentinent beings
are nothing but expressions of the one
mind. There is nothing else.

~ Zen Master Huang Po

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Dhammapada - Verse 31

The Story of a Certain Bhikkhu

While residing at the Jetavana monastery, the Buddha uttered Verse (31) of this book, with reference to a certain bhikkhu.

A certain bhikkhu, after obtaining a subject of meditation from the Buddha, went to the forest to meditate. Although he tried hard he made very little progress in his meditation practice. As a result, he became very depressed and frustrated. So, with the thought of getting further specific instructions from the Buddha, he set out for the Jetavana monastery. On his way, he came across a big blazing fire. He ran up to the top of a mountain and observed the fire from there. As the fire spread, it suddenly occurred to him that just as the fire burnt up everything, so also Magga Insight will burn up all fetters of life, big and small.

Meanwhile, from the Gandhakuti hall in the Jetavana monastery, the Buddha was aware of what the bhikkhu was thinking. So, he transmitted his radiance and appeared to the bhikkhu and spoke to him. "My son," he said, "you are on the right line of thought; keep it up. All beings must burn up all fetters of life with Magga Insight."

Then the Buddha spoke in verse as follows.

Verse 31: A bhikkhu who takes delight in mindfulness and sees danger in negligence, advances like fire, burning up all fetters, great and small.

At the end of the discourse that bhikkhu attained arahatship then and there.

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When your mind is liberated your heart floods with compassion: compassion for yourself, for having undergone countless sufferings because you were not yet able to relieve yourself from false views, hatred, ignorance, and anger; and compassion for others because they do not yet see and so are still imprisoned by false views, hatred, ignorance, and continue to create suffering for themselves and for others. Now you look at yourself and at others with the eyes of compassion, like a saint who hears the cry of every creature in the universe and whose voice of every person who has seen reality in perfect wholeness.

~ Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh. The Mircale of Mindfulness

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Let us look within; let us be watchful of our own minds, our own thoughts. When we see unwholesome thoughts arising---thoughts that loaded with greed, anger or resentment, let us aboabdon them immediately. Why would we want to hold on to thoughts that only brings us misery? But when we see wholesome thoughts arising---thoughts of goodwill, love and compassion, let us nuture them because they are the source of happiness and the happiness of others.

~ Buddhist scholar Peter Della Santina

An Eternal Now SG

We do not have to seek truth. Truth is not something far away. It is the truth of the mind, truth of its activities from moment to moment. If we are aware of this moment-to-moment truth, of this whole process of time, this awareness releases consciousness or that energy to be. As long as the mind uses consciousness as the self-activity, time comes into being with all its miseries, with all its conflicts, with all its mischiefs, its purposive deceptions; and it is only when the mind, understanding this total process, ceases, that love will be. You may call it love or give it some other names; what name you give is of no consequence.

~ J Krishnamurti

An Eternal Now SG

If you listen completely, there is no listener Listen to those crows. Do listen. If you listen completely, is there a centre from which you are listening? Your ears are listening. There is the noise, there is the vibration and all the rest of it, but there is no centre from which you are listening. There is attention. Therefore if you listen completely, there is no listener; there is only the fact of that noise. To listen completely you must be silent, and that silence is not something in thought, created by thought. When you listen to that crow that is making the noise before it goes to sleep, so completely that there is no listener, you will see that there is no entity that says, I am listening.

~ J Krishnamurti

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