Zen Insight

True Beauty

2007-03-08T10:00:00.000-08:00

This morning we had a slideshow of our photos running on our home TV, and both of us were looking at some pictures of when we were at Las Vegas a few years ago, at how beautiful some of the insides of the hotels are. It was Chinese New Years celebration and there were beautiful statues and decorations dotted throughout the complex and streets.

But then I contemplated a little deeper. Is this beauty there to lure people in to spend and therefore lose more money? Where did the money come from for the decorations if not the tears of those who have lost their hard earned money to a bad bet? Suddenly what I thought was beautiful became a manifestation of pain and sorrow.

It made me question what is beauty exactly. The beauty of a red sky at sunset is also the bleeding of the earth as the pollution erodes away the clean air, the spectacular beauty of the molten rock pouring from a volcano is also the deadly force that destroys lives and towns. The beauty of a cute baby's face is also the suffering of a less fortunate child who gets no such attention. What is a beautiful roast dinner to one, to a vegetarian is a murder scene.

As the Buddha said:

"...beauty that simply stands opposed to ugliness is not true beauty."

Beauty that discriminates is not beauty, and neither is it ugliness. Beauty that discriminates is discrimination.

So what then is true beauty? Does this then mean that beauty is nothing but an illusion? Is beauty just a notion we have constructed? A seduction to attachment that we should allow to pass without ado?

We know beauty when we see it, but let us look at the dictionary definition:

"The quality present in a thing or person that gives intense pleasure or deep satisfaction to the mind."

This satisfaction, the pleasure that peace can bring, is exactly what we experience only in the present moment. When there is nothing to grasp for, when we arrive, when we finally find peace, then we are truly satisfied.

And so I think that everything in the present moment is beautiful. Absolutely everything. The moment we transcend samsara we are taken to the Pure Land, everything is illuminated by Amitabha, we get to witness the Buddha-nature, the dharma in all things.

That doesn't mean to say that actions are beautiful. It may be difficult to see beauty in a scene of mass destruction for instance. But in the present moment there are no actions, there is no destruction, there is no karma. To see beauty we need to see beyond actions, beyond past or future, to all that is present in the here and now. We need to look deeply into things to see their true nature, their true emptiness, to see that what is lasting, what inter-is, is beautiful. Everything is illuminated by the infinite light of Amida.

It is that light that is beautiful. What we think of as pleasing to the senses is really just a glimpse of the Pure Land, but we mistakenly think that the source of the beauty is the object itself. In actuality, then, when we see something as beautiful we should acknowledge that the true source of that beauty is suchness itself, whether we see that through mindfulness, vipassana or through the mind of Amida via the nembutsu.

The next time I am sitting in awe at a beautiful landscape, decorations, or the beautiful face of my daughter, I won't doubt the beauty I see. I won't look deeply at an object only to replace one notion with another, instead I will see it as it really is, with notions extinguished. With this I will know that through the grace of Amida the beauty I am seeing is really the beauty of Amida's light illuminating the scene. That through this light I can look deeply into the present moment, into its emptiness, and in that I will see its true, satisfying nature, its true beauty.

The faith we have in this gives us enormous strength to act with a clear mind, and to resolve suffering. That is true beauty.

From the Dharmapada: The Path of Perfection:

"When one attains the release called the Beautiful, at such a time he knows in truth what Beauty is."

Namu Amida Butsu!

When All Is Lost

2007-02-13T21:30:00.000-08:00

About two weeks ago I had a nightmare. I'm not quite sure why, I think I had a cold at the time and wasn't sleeping well. In the nightmare I was being chased by a gang who were desperately trying to kill me. Right before I woke up I was surrounded by men holding knives and seemingly in the last few seconds of my life. It was terrifying.

Even though I was dreaming I was in a state of absolute panic and fear. It wasn't the kind of fear that would afford me the time to be mindful. It wasn't a matter of looking deeply into my fears, because I was overwhelmed by a primal need to protect my life, to fight for survival.

Suddenly all the sutras, all the books I've read, all concepts, dharma debates and practices all became meaningless. What I needed was to see my family one last time. My wife and adorable daughter. I needed a warm hand to pull me up and out of my terror. I had no energy to think, the fear was so overwhelming it paralyzed me.

Zen is quite a practical religion, and my practice would tell me to just act and not let the fear itself become an obstacle to a necessary action. There are many instances when that is very sound advice. Yet when death seems inevitable, that strategy hardly seems useful if even possible.

When Jesus was on the cross he exclaimed "My Father, Why have you forsaken me?". As our lives are being taken from us, our reaction is to feel alone, abandoned and helpless.

When all else is lost, where do you turn? It struck me at this point that perhaps Zen practice isn't enough. Maybe my practice isn't strong enough, or perhaps I am just honest to realize that I am not strong enough. No matter how able we are to tame our minds, sometimes in a state of desperation what you need the most is comfort. You need to regress to a child, and submit your worries to your mother's capable hands.

Pure Land Buddhists, and many other Buddhists also, chant the name of Amitabha Buddha when death is imminent. Supposedly to be reborn in the Pure Land, but I think there is more to it than that. It is not an egotistic practice, it is an act of devotion.

As a baby we are helpless, yet somehow more content than we are the rest of our lives. Our lives are entrusted to our mother, who feeds and nurtures us. This type of submission is the deepest form of devotion, the deepest faith we will ever experience. Yet when a baby is distressed she cries 'mama'. To say that this is purely a survival tactic is superficial, I think, because reaching out gives us hope, and where there is hope there can be peace.

For all the instruction we receive on following the eightfold path, we should never see it as a skill to attain. When fear is overwhelming you are in no state to look to practice a skill. If anything, Zen is about letting go of skills, letting go of notions. This is very important. There is an excellent book by Shunryu Suzuki called 'Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind' that emphasizes that very point.

Letting go is exactly what we do as a baby: we let go of our need to survive, we surrender it to our mother, and then we are as peaceful as a sleeping baby.

Many of the most devout Christians, Muslims, the most faithful of theistic religious followers, have learnt how to let go. They submit their worries, their fears, to God, to Jesus, to Mary, or to Allah. By letting go they are able to live in the present moment in peace. This isn't something to be dismissed, even if you have never followed a theistic religion.

As Zen practitioners we shouldn't deny our human state. We are loving creatures. We need companionship, not just books, empty words or ability to sit alone in meditation. In our deepest moment of need, we need someone to carry us away. We don't need practice, we need someone. This is why we have Amida Buddha, God, Jesus, Mary... that is why we need a personification, a person to submit our troubles to and to carry us away when we most need someone to be there for us. It is a most fundamental aspect of our humanity and should be embraced, not transcended. It should be transformed into love for a greater being, into energy that can lift you up into their arms.

Devotion itself can be Dharma. It was said in a Zen proverb that anything that is not of the self is Dharma. Submitting yourself to another is thus Dharma. Submitting your fears actually enables you to be mindful. It is a deep practice that should be embraced.

As Carl Jung pointed out, we should never deny our own roots. If we grew up in a Christian environment, then we should embrace the figure of Jesus or Mary. If we feel more comfortable embracing Buddha then we should embrace them. But we should always have someone that, in our weakest moment, we can submit our fears to. Perhaps you won't realize this until you are faced with overwhelming fear, but I can bet it will happen one day.

Zen tells us that words and concepts are not sufficient to allow us to experience reality. In our weakest state we realize just how true that is.

It took this nightmare for me to understand how important it is to not see Zen as something to be mastered or even attained. You're not studying for a degree in psychology. Just as how you arrived, on your deathbed you have nothing. As we are reading we should always pause to remind ourselves that there is nothing to learn there, but everything to let go.

But in a state of fear, even the thought of letting go is not enough. Letting go doesn't help you from feeling lonely.

Mindfulness is often described as the practice of observing our thoughts as if they were flowing down a river and we were sitting on the riverbed watching. And this works. Devotion doesn't change that. It just means that at the end of the river is God, or Buddha, or Mary, with a glowing, happy face and wide open arms. When you have no strength, they are your strength. We let go of our thoughts, but we know who will receive them. They will watch your thoughts flow down the river with you.

And when all is lost, in your final moments, you simply fall into that river, and flow into their arms.

Even in moments in daily life this can be useful, because the burden of looking deeply is shared - now you have someone watching your thoughts also, so you will want to only have pure thoughts, you will strive to become better.

Devotion can be a wonderful thing, and (contrary to some of my previous posts) I am beginning to think that having a person to look to, and to devote yourself to, can give you more strength to practice, not less, and someone to fall back onto when all else is lost.

Slowing Down

2007-01-15T22:35:00.000-08:00

When we're driving down the freeway, going perhaps 70 or 80mph, our eyes lock onto objects further and further away the faster we go. The world around us disappears, and all that we see is our destination. While we are traveling where are we? We are neither at our destination, nor are we on the way because we do not see what is on the way. We are nowhere. Tuning out reality, neglecting the world that is here now, all we do is set ourselves up for accidents and tragedy.

If we live our life at 80mph we are not alive in reality. We live instead in a world of delusional goals. If we spend today worrying about tomorrow, or dwelling on yesterday, then with that mentality a true day is never experienced. Where we set our sights is the difference between living and not living.

If your mind is the car, and your body is the surroundings, the question becomes whether your mind is truly in your body. A phrase people often use is "you are a million miles away". How accurate this is. When you are not alive in the present moment, your mind leaves your body. You live in a true out of body experience. The mind escapes from the body and tries to live in its own world, in samsara, maya, an illusory world. The goal of mindfulness, the goal of Zen Buddhism, is to bring together your mind and your body. We do this by slowing down, and looking deeply.

When the car is going so fast the driver no longer sees what is around him, what happens to the car? Likewise when your mind is preoccupied with tomorrow, what happens to today? What would we do if the orange tree didn't bear any fruit because it was too busy worrying about whether next year's summer will be warm enough? What would we do if the sun stopped burning because it was worrying about whether it will exist billions of years from now?

The mind is a powerful instrument, but like everything it is an interdependent component. It depends on your body as much as your body depends on your mind. When your mind thinks it is a separate, individual object and it tries to leave the body, then neither can exist. A speeding car certainly doesn't stay on the freeway for long.

Having angry thoughts is natural. One shouldn't suppress angry thoughts. But mindfulness can transform how your mind responds to anger. If you let anger consume you, your mind will be a million miles away. All that would be left is a run-away car with no driver that can cause so much damage. Being mindful when you are angry lets you acknowledge the anger objectively, without affecting what drives your actions. The car moves on slowly and gracefully and the anger, because it is now seen as empty and impermanent, dissipates and passes by. This is an example of how mindfulness transforms suffering.

To live is to touch reality. The mind must be in contact with the body, the body must be in contact with its environment. Everything interconnects in harmony. When we try to separate, when we view things as separate, we are delusional and we ignore the harmony, thinking we can create something better ourselves in our mind. Erroneously we accept our thoughts as though they are reality when they are nothing but a fictitious, fake reality. The true reality is out there, not in your mind.

As a illusory separate thing the mind is vulnerable, the separateness must eventually end, it possesses and loses, it lives in a world of pain and sorrow. But when the mind joins with the body, when the body joins with the environment, then there can be no vulnerability. There is no loss because all is one. Living mindfully is living in peace, living in nirvana, in the pure land.

Putting this in perspective shows me just how important it is to live mindfully. I may walk a little slower. I may drive a little slower. I may move a little more gracefully. I may speak fewer words. I may stop more often to soak up the beauty in which I am immersed. But each step I take is a step I take in heaven, on this beautiful path for all of eternity.

Zen Parenting

2007-01-13T09:40:00.000-08:00

Some people have told me that having children is the end of your life as you know it. I have often written about my experience of having children and how it relates to my work life elsewhere, but I'd like to also share my experience of having children from a spiritual perspective.

One may think that even in Buddhism having children can be a distraction from your path to enlightenment, but I don't think that's the case at all. In fact the opposite is true.

I have set myself a goal of becoming more mindful each day. I find new techniques to transcend my existence such that I do not exist day by day in a cloud of samsara, but instead I live in reality, touching the here and now as each moment passes, becoming a part of the harmony of reality.

Since having a child I have discovered what it is like to live. Every time I am playing with, being with my daughter I feel alive. I'm sure many parents have also had this wonderful experience. But why is this?

My daughter doesn't let me sit down for long. She pulls me up by my hand, and drags me over to her toys or outside. She wants to play. Playing is participating for the enjoyment of participating, of being a part of something, of being able to win or lose without it really affecting you. Is there much of a difference between playing and being mindful? Is this not kensho in Zen Buddhism? Is not the bliss of playing a sharing in the sambhogakaya of the Buddha?

My daughter always bring me back to reality, she always helps me touch the here and now. In her I see a being who transcends the worrying, endless decisions and debate that seem to consume us as adults.

This is just one way that being with children can be a form of meditation. Children are also a good reminder of sunyata, emptiness. In them we see ourselves, our wife, parents, ancestors, cultures. In them we see all of humaity, we see the dharmakaya. Every sentence they utter can be seen as a koan, not just because it it is seemingly nonsensical, but because it is a glimpse of true reality.

There is perhaps not greater manifestation of the law of karma than your child. Every action, every intention you have, will bear fruit in your child. If you curse, it won't take long before you hear a complaint from the school principal about your child's foul mouth. If you lose your temper and smack your child in a moment of weakness, then this is how your child will learn how to react in difficult social situations. Children are like mirrors, and in them not only do you see your ancestory but you also see every action you take. They are your walking karma.

Having children is a gift that can transform our lives in many ways, but more than anything they can be zen masters, teachers that can educate us not just about parenting, but also about ourselves, reality and enlightenment.

If only we stayed that way.

You Are Home

2007-01-07T20:55:00.000-08:00

Decision trees let us map out scenarios and possible outcomes, and from an outcome another series of choices, another series of possible outcomes, and so on. The resultant structure is called a decision tree because each decision branch resembles a tree.

As complicated as it may sound, in the back of our mind we are constantly immersed in a giant decision tree. We subconsciously think 'what will we have for dinner tonight? if we have chicken it would be nice. If we have sandwiches we might still be hungry. If we have chicken then what would we do after dinner?' - the list goes on. Whether we're conscious of it or not, it's most definitely there.

This is a subconcious form of worry. It's in the background all day long, and the more we have going on in our lives, the larger and more complex the decision tree becomes. The more we think about problems, the larger and more complex it becomes. It bogs us down, it feels heavy.

Goals, expectations, desires, this constant feeling that we need to attain more to be happier - all of these things add new dimensions and more weight to our decision tree. It's ironic that we think that we can gain happiness by acquiring more things - more wealth, a bigger house, a bigger car, a bigger TV. Yet beyond the instant gratification, what does it really give us? It just adds to the weight of the burden of our decision tree.

When we have a larger decision tree in the back of our mind, we feel like we have "a lot on our mind". When we have less, we feel at peace.

When we go on a vacation we try to forget about our worries. All we're really doing is trying to forget our decision tree is there. Vacation is a form of denial. By changing the scenery all we're doing is trying to remove the reminders of the things in our decision tree - the pending worries. But ignoring the tree is not the solution. You cannot run away from the things you have decided need worrying about.

Some people feel that drinking alcohol or taking drugs, blurring our mental capacity to think clearly, will also take away our problems. But again, beyond the instant gratification all we are doing is denying that the problems are there. When we're sober, they suddenly reappear and now you have more to worry about: am I becoming depending on alcohol? What did I do when I was drunk?

Thinking about scenarios and possible outcomes is a form of protection. By having answers ready, by being prepared, we are more likely to be able to retain our status quo - to keep our peace.

But perhaps the decision tree is not the problem, perhaps the problem is our attachment to the status quo - our aversion to changes in our environment and routine that gives us this mental capacity to worry.

From since we were very young, the day we had our first problem ('why isn't mommy around to feed me?'). The womb was such a permanent seeming place. It seems that the minute we are born we have a carrot dangling in front of us. We are trained to live up to the expectations of society. Fashion, trends, peer pressure. Yet the truth is we are born with everything we need to find happiness. The problem is not that we are unhappy, the problem is that we are looking for happiness in the wrong places.

Nobody really tells us where to find happiness. Our parents may not know. With everything that is pushed into our faces from the media, it's easy to think that material wealth is the key to happiness. That posessing more somehow gives us a sense of foundation and permanence.

Becoming attached to the status quo, to the environment in which you live, to posessions that make this synthetic foundation, is a symptom that you do not yet understand where to find happiness. If we start to value reality not as something that is stationary, permanent, but instead value life as a stream of flowing water, always changing path and always adapting to the course, then we no longer become attached to the false notion of permanence.

All life is impermanent. Change is unavoidable.True happiness lies not in synthesizing a notion of permanence. True happiness lies in realizing impermanence and understanding how truly wonderful change can be.

We think that to live is to resist change. But all we are doing is living in this giant decision tree, we are not really living in reality at all. We live two steps ahead of ourselves, and so we don't really live at all. It becomes this illusory world of problems, of notions, prejudices, disappointment, unhappiness, suffering.

To accept change, to value reality for what it really is, is to be truly alive. When we accept this, the decision tree embedded in our mind disintegrates. We no longer need to protect things from changing because we embrace change. We touch everything around us with a new form of relationship, a pure friendship that constitutes true loving kindness.

This is peace. This is nirvana. Happiness is right here already - all it takes is a new perspective.

Tranquility

2006-12-22T21:24:00.000-08:00

Intently I watch the calm,
the still waters of a lake during sunset,
a quiet breeze gently caressing every leaf, every tree.
Gentle echoes emanate but wane,
chasing voices, rushing whispers,
the breath of tenderness across the landscape
as she peacefully slips below the blanket of dusk.
Colors fading, edges no longer seen,
but not into darkness, warmth,
embraced in the stillness of peace.
A distant bird's lonely song
is all that remains,
the quiet voice of life.
the overtone of tranquility.

There is peace all around us. There is tranquility everywhere. Nirvana is here, in the here and now, it is not somewhere waiting for us or hiding from us. What is Nirvana, and what is Buddha Nature if not true tranquility. The harmony of nature, free from judgment, free from worries, free from fear, free from our projections and our selfish manipulation, free from these notions, that is Nirvana.

A picture of a still lake can help remind us of that, it can be a "bell of mindfulness" - a term I borrow from Thich Nhat Hanh. It helps us realize the harmony and tranquility that is inherent in nature, it brings us home. In that sense artwork can embody the dharmakaya. In music you can hear the sounds of nature, the harmony of Nirvana. All of these forms of creative art can help heal us, can help transform our suffering into peace, they can all help calm the waters of our anger and our fear.

Even during a great volcano there can be tranquility. Like all things even rocks change. The molten lava is rock that has sustained us for millions of years, the lava is a part of us just like the sky is a part of us. It may seem angry, but lava soon cools and turns back into rock, once again at the service of nature. It is not consumed by anger, it doesn't seek revenge, it has no notions of good or bad. The lava is the rock, the lava is the mud, the lava sustains life and the lava transforms life. Like the sunshine it provides energy that is necessary to the harmony of nature, that is necessary to tranquility.

So long as we maintain our notions and opinions, we cannot see tranquility. The silent lake at dusk may be hiding fish feeding on aquatic insects, yet without our judgment this can be just as still as the lake itself.

The lake of life, samsara, is tranquil if we only let it be. Nirvana is here if we can only see it.

Kids Without Compassion

2006-12-21T13:11:00.000-08:00

In both schools of Buddhism the emphasis seems to be on transforming human nature from what it is natural to a different nature where loving kindness is valued over selfish gain. The question I have though, is whether that is in fact the 'natural' human condition, to be selfish?

There was recently an article on NewsWeek about "kids who lack compassion". There was a study where children were told stories of other children, some of whom were lucky and others who were not. When asked who they would prefer to befriend, the answer was consistently the children who were luckier. Ergo children inherently lack compassion, and compassion is something they learn later in life. You can read the article here:http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16286475/site/newsweek/page/1

Many people see this as sign of hopelessness, that there is no future for a compassionate humanity if by our very nature we are born to be selfish. Some even cite evolution as being the cause of this condition. However I disagree.

The problem is not with the children. Children are born, for the most part, as blank slates. Of course they have emotions that are based on selfish gain, that is a matter of survival, but when it comes to their values these are mostly learnt from their parents and environment. If the parents value a boy who finds $5 as being lucky, then so will the children. If the parents value beauty over personality then so will the children.

What if the child who found $5 then used it to buy his first pack of cigarettes? What if the boy who lost that $5 learnt a valuable lesson about looking after his money? Who is the lucker one? Learning values requires looking deeply, and children do have a natural capacity for looking deeply but only if it is nurtured by their parents.

In a nurturing environment children learn that survival can be attained without the need for aggressive behavior. Children learn values of compassion by seeing their parents value compassion, by seeing their children being mindful and looking deeply and not acting on impule and emotion.

This is not a matter of natural selection in evolution, it is not a matter of original sin as some may claim. To say that is dismissing the actual problem, and dispelling our responsibility as a society. This is a problem that can be solved and the solution is in our hands.

Reconciling Buddhism and Christianity

2006-12-13T10:03:00.000-08:00

One of Thich Nhat Hanh's pet projects in life is to promote harmony between different religions. After befriending Thomas Morton, and living in the predominently catholic south of France, he was involved in a lot of discussion with Christians, and thus sought to help bring together both Buddhists and Christians so they could work side by side in peace.

The Venerable Thich Nhat Hanh has produced at least two books on this subject, "Living Buddha, Living Christ" and "Going Home: Jesus and Buddha as Brothers". They're good books and I highly recommend them.

However, I personally do not believe there is much room for any true reconciliation between these two religions. There are fundamental differences that I think many followers of both religions would have difficulty reconciling.

For one, Christianity is a fundamentally mystical and mysterious religion. It requires a lot of faith to believe in both the anthropomorphic nature of God and many of the stories in the Bible, not least the resurrection of Christ and his ascention into Heaven.

Buddhism requires very little faith from its followers. Many of its teachings are quite practical, at least those centering on the more practical 'engaged buddhism' that Thich Nhat Hanh promotes. Many of its central teachings on inter-being become evidential with simple meditation.

But that is not the main problem. The main problem is that Christians, like Jews before them, have this fundamental view that man is the center of the universe. Earth, all planets, all animals, all trees and everything in the environment was created purely for the benefit of man. According to Genesis, even women were created for men.

Buddhists, however, believe that there is no self. Not only is man not the center of the universe, but men, women, dogs, trees, grass, planets... everything is part of the one consciousness that is Buddha Nature. Everything is connected and everything is one. Nothing was created for the purpose of anything, and the revelation of these truths is the focus of meditation in Buddhism.

Now in his books Thich Nhat Hanh says that he has met Christians that are more Buddhist than some of the so called Buddhists he knows. The problem here is that these Christians probably are not true Christians. More than likely they have their own beliefs but continue to go to church because they don't fully understand their faith. I actually think there are a lot of Christians in this situation, and it's great that Thich Nhat Hanh's books are helping people to see the differences more clearly.

These concepts are so totally opposite one another that it is impossible for a true Christian to accept the Buddhist way of seeing the universe. There cannot be a personal omniscient God in Buddhism. There cannot be a Christ who was exclusively sent from God to save us from our sins. There cannot be exclusive paths to God through sacraments when Buddhists believe that God, if you can call it that, is everything and everywhere without preference. Thich Nhat Hanh shows us a way to see these aspects of Christianity through the lens of a Buddhist world-view, which is wonderfully revelational, but I doubt it will do much to convert many true Christians.

I think there is hope though. There seems to be to be a growing trend of next generation Christians who seem more open to the less disciminatory beliefs of Buddhism. Call it Gnostic Christianity if you like, there is definitely a trend emerging, possibly influenced by various new movies popular among kids. I think movies like Star Wars (written by the Buddhist George Lucas), the Matrix, Da Vinci Code and several others are all helping shape and open the minds of young Christians to new metaphysical concepts beyond a judgemental God.

I don't think there is much hope for Christians and Buddhists to develop a joint theology. But there is perhaps hope for some Christians at least to look beyond their church for a religion that is less entrenched in dogma, discrimination and often hypocrisy.

Understanding Karma

2006-12-11T21:45:00.000-08:00

When you honestly accept emptiness and rebirth, when you fully understand interbeing, it becomes obvious that the actions we take have far reaching consequences. This instills a critical sense of responsibility in our every day lives. The force that drives actions and the consequences that occur is the basis of karma.

It should be noted from the outset that karma is not intended to be some kind of mystical force, some grand judge or divine justice. For a start Buddhism has no such concept of a personified God who would enact that kind of power for his own entertainment.

Karma emerges from the concept of action and consequence, emptiness and rebirth. If we are all not selves but instead part of a universal self, part of Buddha Nature or God, then what we do will have repercussions in a future life or future manifestation. However it shouldn't be viewed as a materialistic or mathematical concept. Karma isn't involved in the material world, but instead manifests in the consciousness as intentions to act.

It is this understanding of interbeing, emptiness and consequences of actions and the intentions that drive those actions that forms the development of compassion in Buddhism.

This is the simplest explanation of karma, but of course there is a lot more. For a start, what does it mean to have good karma or bad karma?

Good deeds do not result in fortune for you in a future life. There are two things wrong with thinking that. Firstly if you honestly believe in noself you will not be thinking in terms of future lives, rather you will be thinking in terms of future manifestations as there is no concept of soul or continuation of soul, there is inter-being and continuation of Buddha Nature. Secondly good karma has nothing to do with fortune.

Remember that the first of the four noble truths tells us that the world is full of suffering. This is unavoidable. Good karma does not eliminate suffering. However good karma can transform suffering and thus eliminate fear and distress.

Imagine a man who has lost his right arm, who was robbed and so lost all his money, was short, had no hair and never married. It might be easy to say that he has bad karma, inherited perhaps from a past life.

However if that man was at peace, despite all the afflictions he suffers, because he is able to have a deep understanding of the nature of the suffering and see through those things to the Buddha Nature, to God, then he probably has better karma than the richest man alive. He is able to take his afflictions, the mud or compost, and transform that into a beautiful lotus flower.

Interbeing tells us that sometimes just a simple smile at a stranger can have far reaching implications. The deeds may not necessarily have any effect on karma, but it could be good karma that caused the intention in the first place.

In Buddhism the consciousness is seen as a garden of seeds, some bad seeds and some good seeds. By watering, by nurturing the good seeds we are able to develop intentions driven by compassion for others and seeing the Buddha Nature in others. This creates good karma. However if we give in to our own selfish needs and water the bad seeds, then we develop bad karma, and interbeing and noself tells us that karma doesn't stop at our self.

Karma is a difficult, if not impossible, concept to fully comprehend. Yet, while easy to dismiss certain events in ones life as being caused by 'bad karma', is a mislead notion. Rather one should meditate on the event and try to gain a deeper understanding of both the event and ones reaction to the event. What is discovered will tell us a lot more about the karma involved in the event.

Rebirth: No Death, No Fear

2006-12-09T22:46:00.000-08:00

I have an absolutely wonderful two year old daughter. In her more focused moments she likes to play with lego. However, she doesn't call it lego, she instead calls it 'Abat'.

This comes from the first time she was playing with lego, and we'd show her how to make a robot from the lego. We'd add a head, some eyes, stiff looking arms and feet and voilla - we have a robot. Her eyes and face lit up. She would fondly refer to it as "abat". She would hug it and kiss it, and moments layer completely destroy it and start the process again.

Each time she would put together a few bits of lego and, with the help of her imagination, she would enthusiastically run with the construction over to her Daddy and exclaim "abat! abat!".

She has been doing this for months now, and every time 'abat' looked completely different. No matter what form it takes, even when it's just the components of lego spread out all over the floor, it was still her beloved "abat". If she happens to find a bit of lego under the sofa, she would still say "abat!".

My little Buddha Baby is clearly quite elightened: Our dear Abat is empty of self. She knows that she would never lose Abat, no matter what hardship he experiences, what mutilation he suffers, even faced with total anihilation. In any form of even formlessness therein lies the Buddha Nature of Abat.

When discussing emptiness in the previous post, it's sometimes easy to underestimate its importance. I think you have to understand emptiness before you can have a true understanding of any of the other concepts in Buddhism.

Rebirth is no exception. Yet, again the name can be quite misleading. Thich Nhat Hanh explains this very well, and coins the term 'continuation' rather than rebirth. I think it's fair to say that it is more a matter of transformation or re-manifestation than it is rebirth.

If you truly understand emptiness then you realize that there is no birth. There is no death. The essence of the self that you know cannot be pinpointed to one location, to one entity. Interbeing means that the true essence, the Buddha Nature of an entity is connected to every form in the cosmos. While one leaf may wither and fall to the ground, it feeds the roots of a tree and so the forest, which is the true self, continues.

Our dear Abat cannot die. He is reborn, or continued, in each of his manifestations - each time he is rebuilt in different forms. In the same manner, the broomstick in the previous post will also never die: the brush is replaced, the handle is replaced, and eventually it will take on another form - perhaps as ash, forming compost from which grass grows, feeding a cow and producing a glass of milk. With mindfulness you can drink a broomstick the next time you are drinking a glass of milk.

There is a certain comfort in understanding rebirth. Our fear of death drives us in so many deep ways. We need to have kids before it's "too late", we need to accomplish this because "life is too short". Yet when you remove the constraints of birth and death,you are liberated. When you understand your interbeing, your arms stretch out over all of humanity, all of nature, and you touch everything in the world. You do not see things die but merely transform, and support and love, the true self.

As wonderful as this seems, you may be thinking that it's easy to pinpoint things that are seemingly lost between lives. Transformation seems fine when applied to the physical, but when personalities and knowledge are concerned, it becomes more difficult to accept.

These traits are typically known as the dharma. The dharma of an individual is extended through teaching. What we learn from a personality or from the wisdom of a beloved, we are accepting into our own selves. A part of them is being immortalized in us.

Buddhism helps us, through meditation and practice, to enjoin the mind and the body. And in this our thoughts become actions - whether physical actions, speech, writings... the dharma can be transmitted and extended in so many ways, just like giving someone a gift except that the gift never depletes. Instead it just grows further. And with this growth comes its immortality, its new life.

Christ was ressurrected after dying on the cross. Yet, in Buddhist fashion, he actually never died. His dharma was instilled in his following, the body of Christ was already present in his disciples. The rebirth of Jesus happened in every sermon, every healing, every time he touched the life of another. And still today is Jesus reborn in every moment.

Christ truly is immortal because Christ is empty of self, yet like Abat, manifested in so many ways. And that is the true understanding of rebirth and resurrection in Buddhism.

Emptiness: The Cup is Empty, Long Live the Cup!

2006-12-06T09:10:00.000-08:00

Emptiness is a fundamental teaching of Buddhism, and one of the most difficult to accept. At face value emptiness seems like a very negative word. If I'm drinking coffee and my cup becomes empty then I have run out of coffee and it's no reason to celebrate. If my wallet is empty then I have no money and there's no reason to celebrate. If I open a present to find an empty box, I would not be happy.

Emptiness is a translation from the word Sunyata, which can also be translated to voidness. But, as always, language is rarely capable of depicting meaning. In Buddhism, emptiness is a very positive word as it defines the love of life and existence itself, and membership to the family of the universe, to the family of God. Emptiness promotes objects, it doesn't demote them or deny them. It puts objects away from loneliness and into the arms of God.

There was once a man who swept roads for a living. One morning he was sitting down with a friend and said "You know I've had this broom for 17 years, this broom is my best and oldest companion". The friend was amazed, "17 Years? That's a long time!". The road sweeper explained, "Yes it is! I've only changed the handle 8 times and the brush 5 times.".

So we can see that the broom is not really a broom of 17 years. Yet if we were to look even more deeply into the broom we would see that even the brush is not really a brush. It is wood from a tree, that arose from the dirt in which it was planted. The bristles come from a horse perhaps, that was fed on grass and water. Somebody looked after the horse, his love for the horse perhaps was taught to him by his father. A horse, grass, trees, sunshine, water, people and their ancestors: You can say the brush is all of these things. If you take away all the components of a brush you are left with nothing, so the brush itself is empty yet at the same time full of everything.

What makes this a wonderful concept is that it means that the brush shares its existence with everything else in the universe. It is not just a brush, it is a part of a family, the family of God. It is inter-dependent. As Thich Nhat Hanh would say, it inter-is.

In being mindful we can look deeply into the existence of everything in our daily life and see its true nature, we can see that it touches everything in the universe. By being mindful of this we understand the family nature of the universe, and that everything we do effects this family. Every action has a result or consequences. This is the basis of Karma in Buddhism, a topic for another post.

The fact that everything effects members of this universal family is the basis of the Buddhist code of morality, true compassion. You see that when another is suffering, you are suffering. When another is happy, you are happy. It is really not that different to the Golden Rule, of altruism.

However it should be noted that this view of emptiness does go against some schools of Buddhism, in which the concept is seen a negative against the self. These schools are quite nihilistic in their perspective. It was the Mahayanan tradition that brought balance to the teachings by emphasizing emptiness as being empty of atomicity, of autonomy, not just empty of existence. In this sense Mahayana has compassion as a basic fundamental, derived from the simple concept of interbeing. Mahayana Buddhism is life affirming, not life denying. Every part of life is a part of the universal family, the one consciousness, and every part of that family is as important as the family itself.

Emptiness, of course, goes beyond what a Christian can accept. Christians believe that the universe was made by God as a gift to man. Under this belief you can say that man is justified in doing anything with these gifts as they are his. The morality in Christianity stems purely from following the life of Jesus and of the ten commandments.

Christians do not believe that humans are born purely from components, but that each human is instilled with a divine spirit. So humans are not empty in that sense. The Christian view of emptiness therefore constitutes mortality, that life can indeed end, and only the divine spirit can live on in heaven.

We'll leave the Buddhist view of rebirth to another post, suffice to say that it is quite obvious how rebirth arises from the simple concept of emptiness.

Thich Nhat Hanh

2006-12-05T21:00:00.000-08:00

Thich Nhat Hanh describes his ascent into Buddhism as beginning with him seeing a depiction of the Buddha on the front of a magazine cover. At a time of great suffering for himself he saw how peaceful and serene the Buddha appeared and thought to himself, "I want to be like that".

For Thich Nhat Hanh it was a simple thought that led him to change his life, and the lives of so many others throughout the world.

A few years ago I was standing with my wife at the bookstore, we were going to look for books on raising children because we were thinking of starting a family. For some reason right next to the pregnancy and child rearing books there was the section on self-help books. While my wife was reading I momentarily looked over and picked out a random book, 'No Death, No Fear'. The title intrigued me. I thought "hey, that sounds like a good idea.".

My wife is Vietnamese, with some exposure to Vietnamese names I did at least recognize that Thich Nhat Hanh may in fact have been Vietnamese. I asked my wife and she confirmed. I started flipping through the pages and soon found tears in my eyes as his words of poetic compassion filled my heart. The very essence of his message is a healing peace that is difficult to explain. I showed the book to my wife and she was very interested and so we bought that book.

And so with that moment came a great change in my life - a definite change in my spiritual path from waning Catholic to Buddhist. It has been a bumpy ride - not for any fault of Nhat Hanh's, but more because my own ignorance has blinded me in the path.

But it was Nhat Hanh's own peaceful voice that gave me faith that the answers I was seeking were waiting to be found. While I typically arrogantly jump to conclusions and cynically assume that the answers will fall short, it was just his voice that kept me going. His words, his poetry, his intellect, his message all told me that he knew something that allowed him to be at peace. It was the first time I had really felt a true faith in someone I did not know. Perhaps this is how people felt when they first heard Jesus preach?

It has only been relatively recently that I have discovered the poetic beauty and practical compassion of Mahayana Buddhism and of Thich Nhat Hanh's own Engaged Buddhism.

In true interbeing fashion, the things that led me to the book - my wife, the decision to have a family and the causes of that, the fact my wife is vietnamese, the fact that 'no fear' appealed to me - it is humbling to know that all of these things which originated outside of 'me' brought the book to me, and that in itself is confirmation of the teachings of the Buddha.

I cannoy say enough about how truly wonderful and Holy Thich Nhat Hanh is. His striving to bring religions and people together, not just through speech but through practical means - his retreats for Palestinians and Israelis, his published books on bringing together Christians and Buddhists. Every word, every utterance, each thought he has seems to be for promoting peace and happiness in this world. He truly is the Buddha incarnate.

And we are so blessed to have him as our teacher.

New Blog

2006-12-05T12:02:00.000-08:00

Around 2500 years ago a man had an epiphany of his life, and realized that our very perception of the world is thoroughly immersed in illusory concepts constructed by the ego. By seeing the true nature of things he claims we are able to see that we are all connected, that we are all one, and only the one consciousness is truly permanent. In inter-being we are able to practice true compassion and transform suffering through deep understanding. By transcending the causes of suffering we expose a reality of peace, and touch what some might refer to as God. This man was the Buddha.

Just over 2000 years ago a man was born to apparently fulfill a prophecy, he lived a life teaching peace, equinimity in the face of God and healing the sick. He claimed to be the Son of God and was crucified for fear that his teachings would incite a revolt against Jewish law. Many believe he was ressurrected, and in doing so brought salvation to all of mankind. This man was Jesus.

I have an interest in both Buddhism and Christianity. I think many people have only a superficial understanding of their faith, and it's my aim here to delve just a little bit deeper than that. :) My aim is also to highlight the differences and the similarities between the two spiritual paths, and to reconcile some of my own doubts about my faith. As a disclaimer I should point out that I have absolutely no credentials by which to make authoritative claims, merely to put forward my own ideas which of course may have no merit whatsoever.

In the course of the discussion I will reflect on writings by one of my teachers, the Venerable Thich Nhat Hanh, along with many other sources of Buddhist wisdom. I will also draw on many sources of Christian theology from Aquinas to Ratzinger and CS Lewis.