Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for the ‘Shambhala’ Category

The Psychology of Enlightenment with Chinese Master Yuanwu: Part 2 Actions have Power

Posted in BUddhism, cause and effect, clinging, enlightenment, fears, happiness, illusions, meditation, Mindfulness, old age, psychology, Shambhala, sickness, suffering, Uncategorized, wisdom, Zen, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 3, 2017| 2 Comments »

Yuanwu wrote, “If where you stand is reality, then your actions have power (page 1).[1]

Yuanwu Chinese Master2. BWjpg

Chinese Master Yuanwu

The Chinese poet Chiao Jan (730-799) wrote this poem.

If you want to be a mountain-dweller. . .
No need to trek to India to find one.
I have a thousand peaks
To pick from right here on the lake.
Fragrant grasses and white clouds
Hold me here.
What holds you there,
World-dweller (page 57)?[2]

 

When you find yourself searching for peace, love, and compassion in your life and you don’t seem to be attaining it ask yourself Chiao Jan’s question, “What is holding me here?” And my questions: What got me here? What would happen if I took a different path or thought different thoughts or acted in a different way? What if I took a different action in this situation next time? How would that look and feel? Would it help or hinder?  What if I simply let go of those thoughts and feelings and stopped the actions that are hindering me right now?

These two men were students of Buddhism and of life who understood that our reality is powerful and holds us in or allows us to expand and grow in a positive way.  Chiao Jan was held in by his beautiful mountains and the lake and the fragrant grasses and white clouds.  What holds you?  What has a grip on you?  What does “reality” mean to you anyway?  Are your day dreams real, are your night dreams causing sleeplessness?  Where did your “reality” take you today?

As you can see we create our own reality with our thoughts, behaviors, feelings, desires and more—right where we are. If our actions have power imagine what we could do with the power of “sitting.”  Simply taking time out of each day to quiet our minds and bodies. To release ourselves from the plans, goals, and pressures of life.  To be that “mountain-dweller” amongst the fragrant grasses and white clouds and allow life to “simply be.” Then watch our “reality” move into the power of peace, love, and compassion for all people, places, and things.

Imagine what your life would be like if all your actions and words made a positive difference in everyone you encountered.  What a wonderful world this would be. And you didn’t even have to be a “mountain dweller” to attain it! Try it and let me know how it goes!

In gassho,

ingassho

Shokai

[1] Cleary J.C. and Cleary, T. (1994) Zen Letters Teachings of Yuanwu. Boston & London: Shambhala

[2] S. Hamill and J.P. Seaton (2007) The Poetry of Zen.  Boston & London:Shambhala

Read Full Post »

Living a Life of Free Inquiry: Part 5… Do not believe in Traditions

Posted in attachment, birth, BUddhism, cause and effect, Christianity, diversity, enlightenment, Ethics, fears, happiness, hate speech, human race, love, meditation, Mindfulness, old age, oppression, prayer, religion, self-help, Shambhala, sickness, suffering, Uncategorized, wisdom, Zen, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 20, 2017| Leave a Comment »

Siddhartha Gautama (The Buddha): “Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find anything that agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.”

This week we finished the Jewish tradition of observing Passover and for the Christians Easter and for the Muslims they support them both in some respects.  Within those religions there are traditions and prayers and ceremonies that are used this time each year.  The Jewish tradition of not eating leavened bread is one most people have heard of and everyone has seen the shelves filled with matzo in your grocery stores.

Thus the Buddha admonishes us not to celebrate our traditions because our parents did or our grandparents did but because there is value in doing so.  The traditions allow us to take time out of our daily chores and focus our thoughts and energy on something that will help us grow and be a better person.  They give us an opportunity to look at our behaviors and examine their purpose and outcomes and how they affect our lives, our families, and our communities.

They give us the opportunity to look at our spiritual lives and how we practice our beliefs on a daily basis.  They help us examine our ethics and morals, and our behaviors. As the Buddha said, they give us the opportunity for “observation and analysis.”  At the Southern Palm Zen Group we celebrate one thing each year Rohatsu “the day on which according to tradition Shakyamuni Buddha sitting in meditation under the Bodhi-tree at the first glimpse of the morning star attained enlightenment.”[1] Our celebration is sitting (meditating) through the night, if you can do it, if not, sitting as long as you are able.

Socrates said, “An unexamined life is not worth living.”Socrates

Dr. Simon Longstaff, executive director of the St James Ethics Centre in Sydney, Australia, wrote in the New Philosopher (June 2, 2013),

“I would suggest that one can make sense of Socrates’ claim if it is understood to mean something like – those who do not examine their lives (make conscious ethical decisions) fail to live a life that allows them to experience being fully human. Thus the allure of those who offer to provide clear answers, simple directions, precise instructions (whatever) so that you may set aside examination and merely comply, or unthinkingly follow custom and practice – perhaps living a conventionally moral life rather than an examined ethical life. One can easily imagine how pleasant an unexamined life might be. ”[2]

What does “being fully human” mean to you?  When was the last time you sat down and really examined your life?  What did you find? Finally, what did you actually do with what you discovered?

Keep me posted!

Shokai

[1] The Shambhala Dictionary of Buddhism and Zen, (1991) Shambhala Dragon Editions: Boston

[2] http://www.newphilosopher.com/articles/being-fully-human/

 

Read Full Post »

Teaching with Mindfulness…Step 2: The MASCC

Posted in administrators, attachment, BUddhism, campus unrest, cause and effect, Christianity, clinging, discrimination, diversity, education, enlightenment, Ethics, fears, happiness, hate speech, human race, love, meditation, oppression, planet earth, prayer, protesters, psychology, religion, self-help, Shambhala, suffering, training, Uncategorized, wisdom, Zen, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 9, 2017| Leave a Comment »

Teaching with mindfulness and contemplative practices is like wearing a MASCC while at the same time creating a road map for your students and for yourself.  When we use Mindfulness, Artfulness, Simplicity, Compassion, and Connectedness (MASCC) to design our courses, prepare to teach them, and actually teach them we empower our students in many important and exciting ways.

As educators it is our responsibility to educate our students not only in the course content, but also in how to live mindfully, compassionately, and successfully in an ever changing and challenging world of war, hunger, prejudice, poverty, disease, and climate change.  The power within each of your students lies dormant until we help them discover it.  But for that to occur we must first discover it within ourselves.  We must create a MASCC for our lives and the circumstances within which we live and move and have our being.

So the first step in this process is to find a practice that resonates with your belief system and discover the power that it has to expand your life in these areas.  Chose one area at a time and focus your reading, research, attention, time, and talent in that direction. Make it fun, make it experiential, and make it an integral part of your life.  Then watch what happens with your teaching ability, your creativity, and your responses from your students, friends, and family members.

Change is not easy, but it is important. Stagnation often appears as a very slow death. So slow that we often don’t even recognize it until it is too late.  Stagnation can mean the death of a relationship, a job, your health, and more.  It hinders the growth and learning for yourself and your students.

Today’s students have sensory overload with the internet, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and more! They have trouble focusing and quieting their minds and thus it makes learning very difficult. Their attention span is short and getting shorter every day!  So if you think how and what you taught last year or two years ago or five years ago will work today think again!

mindful-games-book-coverSusan Kaiser Greenland in her book “Mindful Games” shares with her readers an exercise that I think you might like.  It is called “Drop the Monkeys (page80-81).”[1] In Buddhism we talk frequently about the Monkey Mind! Monkeys represent thoughts, sensations, distractions and emotions running around our heads throughout the day.

So what do we do with them? She has her student’s remove their power by adding them to a chain (like a necklace) filled with monkeys.  Once they’ve filled up the chain she has them dropping the chain into a barrel, letting go of them quickly and easily! Whatever you do don’t go back and take them out of that barrel!  Getting rid of the Monkeys will put you on the fast track to creating a powerful MASCC that can change your life forever!

Let me know how it goes!

In gassho,

 

Shokai

[1] Greenland, S.K. (2016) Mindful Games. Shambhala: Boulder

Read Full Post »

Teaching With Mindfulness…Step 1: Be a Mindful Teacher

Posted in BUddhism, campus unrest, cause and effect, education, fears, meditation, Mindfulness, self-help, Shambhala, training, Uncategorized, Zen, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 30, 2016| Leave a Comment »

mindful-teaching-schoeberlein-david

“Mindfulness and education are beautifully interwoven. Mindfulness is about being present with and to your inner experience as well as your outer environment, including other people.  When teachers are fully present, they teach better.  When students are fully present, the quality of their learning is better. It’s a ‘win-win’ equation that can transform teaching, learning, and the educational landscape (page xi).”[1]

Mindfulness is the newest craze in America, although it has been around for many centuries throughout many cultures, religions, and countries it is becoming more available to the secular world every day.

As a Zen Buddhist priest and college professor I have been incorporating mindfulness exercises in my classes and workshops for many years.  Regardless of whether I am teaching a live group in a classroom setting or out doors on an adventure training course or online the principles are applicable.

It really began for me when I was asked to teach developmental English at Broward College.  The first day in the classroom I could see the students were scared to death of me and the course.  Every student in the room had failed the English part of the entrance exam and thus could not take for credit courses unless they passed my class!  Wow.  Scared is probably not even a powerful enough word!

I was mindful as the students entered the room and watched their body language, facial expressions, and heard what they were saying to each other.  I thought about what I could do to help them get calm and ready to learn and I remembered a simple little exercise that I came upon one day in a great little book of Buddhist exercises—How To Train a Wild Elephant & Other Adventures in Mindfulness by Jan Chozen Bays, MD.  “Just Three Breaths” gave very simple directions she wrote:

The Exercise: As many times a day as you are able, give the mind a short rest.  For the duration of three breaths ask the inner voices to be silent. It’s like turning off the inner radio or TV for a few minutes  Then open all your senses and just be aware—of color, sound, touch, and smell (page76).[2]

I revised it just a little for my classes by leaving out the part about thinking!  I never start a class without first taking 3 breaths and I invite my students to participate with me.

Read these steps aloud and do the exercise along with the class. After the exercise is completed get their feedback on how they feel and how it may help them during the class:

  • Shake out your hands to release the tension in them then place them comfortably in your lap or on the desk or table where you are sitting.
  • Close your eyes if you feel comfortable doing so as it will help keep out the visual distractions. If you are not comfortable with that keeping them open is okay as well. Simply focus your eyes on one small object.
  • Take three slow deep breaths counting one on the in breath and two on the out breath.
  • Be careful not to breathe in so deeply that it makes you cough.
  • Is everyone ready—then let’s begin.

This helps me be a “mindful teacher” throughout the class and helps the students open their minds to learn!  Try it and let me know how it works!

In gassho,

Shokai

[1] Schoeberlein, D. (2009) Mindful Teaching & Teaching Mindfulness: a guide for anyone who teaches anything. Somerville, MA:Wisdom Publications

[2] Bays, J.C. (2011) How to Train a Wild Elephant & Other Adventures in Mindfulness. Boston, MA:Shambhala

 

 

Read Full Post »

Beyond Prayer Part 20…Metta Karuna Prayer

Posted in animal rescue, BUddhism, cause and effect, enlightenment, Ethics, fears, hate speech, love, meditation, Metta, Metta Prayer, Mindfulness, oppression, planet earth, prayer, prison system in America, religion, self-help, Shambhala, sickness, suffering, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 18, 2016| Leave a Comment »

Metta Karuna Prayer

 Oneness of Life and Light,
Entrusting in your Great Compassion,
May you shed the foolishness in myself,
Transforming me into a conduit of Love.
May I be a medicine for the sick and weary,
Nursing their afflictions until they are cured;
May I become food and drink,

During time of famine,
May I protect the helpless and the poor,
May I be a lamp,

For those who need your Light,
May I be a bed for those who need rest,
and guide all seekers to the Other Shore.
May all find happiness through my actions,
and let no one suffer because of me.
Whether they love or hate me,
Whether they hurt or wrong me,
May they all realize true entrusting,
Through Other Power,
and realize Supreme Nirvana.
Namo Amida Buddha [1]

 

Today I came across this beautiful prayer entitled “Metta Karuna Prayer.”  I had not read or seen it before. So I looked up what the two words meant. Metta means kindness and karuna means compassion. However, it is said that it must be combined with wisdom in order to be effective. The Shambhala Dictionary of Buddhism and Zen says “Compassion extends itself without distinction to all sentient beings. It is based on the enlightened experience of the oneness of all beings (page 113).” As you will discover when you read and use the prayer the combination of these three ideas kindness, compassion, and wisdom makes this a very powerful prayer.

The prayer ends with “Namo Amida Buddha” which translated means “Praise Amida Buddha.” Amitabha symbolizes mercy and wisdom in the Pure Land school of Chinese and Japanese Buddhism. Calling upon Amitabha Buddha is a perfect closing to the prayer since it is all about compassion, kindness, and wisdom.

It is not easy to have compassion for some people, it is not easy to be kind to some people as they try our patience and our ethics and sometimes even our laws. And yet with wisdom we can see beyond the physical, the mundane, the prejudice, the fear, and the pain. We can see them as someone who is in special need of kindness and compassion. That can only be done when we allow wisdom to be part of the equation. Visualize these three ideas as a three legged stool, without the three legs the stool would not stand. What do you stand for? Only one or two of the three legs of this stool?

Imagine what would happen within us and around us if we said the prayer every day. Imagine our heart being opened to every living being on the planet. Imagine our heart being open to the earth, the animals of the earth, the rivers, oceans, and streams, and the mountains and the valleys.

I am not asking anyone to be “perfect” what I am hoping for is that I and all others will be moving toward enlightenment which can only come when we sit on the stool with all three legs intact, strong, and stable.

I hope you’ll sit with me this week as we use this beautiful prayer to help us live a life of kindness, compassion, and wisdom for all.

Let me know how it goes!

ingassho

Shokai

[1] http://buddhistfaith.tripod.com/buddhistprayer/id2.html

[2]The Shambhala Dictionary of Buddhism and Zen (1991) Shambhala Dragon Editions, Shambhala: Boston, MA

 

 

Read Full Post »

Beyond Prayer Part 18… OM

Posted in BUddhism, chant, love, prayer, religion, Shambhala, Uncategorized, wisdom, Zen, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 3, 2016| 3 Comments »

OM the one sound that crosses all boundaries, all religions, all philosophies, all prayers. As Herman Hesse writes of Siddhartha:

Then, from a remote part of the soul, from the past of his tired life he heard the sound. It was one word, one syllable, which without thinking he spoke instinctively. The ancient beginning and ending of Brahmin prayers, the holy “Om,” which had the meaning of the Perfect One, or perfection (page 52).”[1]

And those who study Tibetan Buddhism have probably chanted this hundreds or even thousands of time.

Chenrezig Mantra: OM MANI PADME HUNG

I found this beautiful explanation of it on http://www.dharma-haven.org/tibetan/meaning-of-om-mani-padme-hung.htm.

The six syllables perfect the Six Paramitas of the Bodhisattvas.

Gen Rinpoche, in his commentary on the Meaning of said:

“The mantra Om Mani Pädme Hum is easy to say yet quite powerful,
because it contains the essence of the entire teaching. When you say
the first syllable Om it is blessed to help you achieve perfection in the
practice of generosity, Ma helps perfect the practice of pure ethics,
and Ni helps achieve perfection in the practice of tolerance and
patience. Päd, the fourth syllable, helps to achieve perfection of perseverance, Me helps achieve perfection in the practice of concentration, and the final sixth syllable Hum helps achieve perfection in the practice of wisdom.

So in this way recitation of the mantra helps achieve perfection in the six practices from generosity to wisdom. The path of these six perfections is the path walked by all the Buddhas of the three times. What could then be more meaningful than to say the mantra and accomplish the six perfections?”

I encourage you to chant this and see how it helps you perfect the characteristics of the Perfect One who embodies those “six practices from generosity to wisdom.” This may change the way you live and love in 2016 and beyond. So chant away!

Keep me posted on how it goes.

In gassho,

ingassho
Shokai

[1] Loori, J.D. (2007) Teachings of the Earth Zen and the Environment. Shambhala: Boston & London.

Read Full Post »

Beyond Prayer Part 16… Kanzeon Sutra of Compassion

Posted in BUddhism, cause and effect, chant, Christianity, enlightenment, love, meditation, planet earth, prayer, religion, Shambhala, suffering, Uncategorized, wisdom, Zen, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 14, 2015| 2 Comments »

Here is one of the sutras that we chant frequently in our services. We begin by chanting it in Japanese several times and then in English several times it is called Emmei Jukku Kannon Gyo. This is a wonderful sutra about Kuan-yin (Chinese) or Avalokiteshvara (Sanskrit). The literal meaning of Avalokiteshvara is sometimes translated as:

He who hears the sounds [outcries] of the World. Avalokiteshvara embodies one of the two fundamental aspects of Buddhahood compassion. Avalokiteshvara is the power of the buddha, Amitabha, manifested as a bodhisattva and appears as his helper. His limitless compassion expresses itself in his wonderful ability to help all beings who turn to him at times of extreme danger. In folk belief, Avalokiteshvara also protects from natural catastrophe and grants blessings to children (page 15).[1]

We talked about Avalokiteshvara when we chanted the meal gatha in Beyond Prayer Part 4. Today we often see him in the feminine form especially when we see statues or pictures of Kuan-yin. Regardless of form this chant will help us during times of need when we wish to seek compassion for ourselves or others. I often call upon Kuan-yin when I see tragedies around the world like earthquakes, floods, tornadoes, gun violence, and terrorist attacks.

EMMI JUKKU KANNON GYO (Kanzeon Sutra)
Kanzeon Namu Butsu
Yo Butsu U In
Yo Butsu U En
Bu Po So En
Jo Raku Ga Jo
Cho Nen Kanzeon [compassion]
Bo Nen Kanzeon [compassion]
Nen Nen Ju Shin Ki
Nen Nen Fu Ri Shin

Kanzeon!
Praise to Buddha!
All are one with Buddha
All awake as Buddha
Buddha, Dharma, Sangha
Eternal, joyous, selfless, pure
Through the day, Kanzeon [compassion]
Through the night, Kanzeon [compassion]
This moment arises from Mind
This moment itself is mind

This is an especially powerful chant that when used regularly can help our world become more compassionate and loving. Imagine what could happen if all the people of the world stopped on the same day and time and chanted this sutra. I think we could heal the world and everyone in it.

Even if people wanted to change the word Buddha to Christ or Mohammad, God/Allah, or Gaia we might heal the planet and all sentient beings in one fell swoop!

A world filled with compassion what a thought!

What a dream! Let’s make it so….

In gassho,

ingassho
Shokai

[1] The Shambhala Dictionary of Buddhism and Zen (1991) Shambhala: Boston, MA

Read Full Post »

Older Posts »