Insight Newsletter – Spring 2005
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Happiness and Peace
Venerable Chanmyay Sayadaw THE BUDDHA’S WAYS TO PEACE AND HAPPINESS Chanmyay Sayadaw Chanmyay Yeiktha Meditation Centre Yangon Myanmar Sabbadānaṃ dhammadānaṃ jinati The gift of Dhamma excels all gifts. Published for free distribution by: Ariya B. Baumann, Winterthur, Switzerland First Edition (5000 copies) sponsored by Ariya B. Baumann With the publication of this book, I express my deep gratitude to my teacher, the Venerable Chanmyay Sayadaw, and all the meditators who have generously supported me throughout the many years of sharing the Dhamma all around the world. The costs of sending this book to many different Buddhist centres within Malaysia and all around the world has been sponsored by devout Malaysian devotees. © Copyright All commercial rights reserved. Any reproduction in whole or part, in any form, for sale, profit, or material gain is strictly prohibited. The reprinting of this book in its entirety, for free distribution as a gift of Dhamma, is allowed after prior notification to the author. Cover photo by: Fred von Allmen, www.fredvonallmen.ch Layout by: Ven. Virañāṇī Cover design by: Susanne Früh, www.islandart.ch Printed by: Wira Printer &Stationer 32, Jalan Pandan Indah 1/14 Pandan Indah 55100 Kuala Lumpur Malaysia Phone: 603 9226 7398 Email: [email protected] i TABLE OF CONTENTS About this translation / ix INTRODUCTION / 1 CHAPTER 1 THE DEVOTIONAL ASPECT OF BUDDHISM What Is the Object of Devotion? / 5 Why Should We Have Faith in the Buddha? / 6 Seeing Things as They Really Are / 10 How the Buddha Realized the True -
Teaching Letters of Zen Master Seung Sahn • Page 274 © 2008 Kwan Um School of Zen •
201 The following kong-an is number nine from the Blue Cliff Records: When you have a clear mirror, the beautiful and the ugly reveal themselves. When you hold the legendary sword, you can kill or grant life, as the moment dictates. Chinese come, foreigners go: foreigners come, Chinese go. In death there is already life: in life there is already death. Now tell me, what can you do? Unless your eye can penetrate all barriers and your body is free to make any turn, you can’t do a thing. But what is this eye that can penetrate all barriers? What is this body that is free to make any turn? Read this kong-an and see: A monk asked Jo-ju, “What is Jo-ju?” Jo Ju answered, “ East Gate, West Gate, South Gate, North Gate.” Strange language. We usually think that when a man dies he is dead, and when he lives he is alive. But in this language, life is death, death is life. Where does life come from? Where does death go? Life and death are only thinking. You must go beyond life and death. That is infinite life. It is “like this.” “Like this” is Jo-Ju’s original face. Mountains are mountains, rivers are rivers: yellow is yellow, red is red. Jo-Ju’s teacher, Nam Chan, said that everyday mind is the Way. Everyday mind is the mind that cuts off all thinking. It is the same as a mirror: when the beautiful comes, it is beautiful: When the ugly comes, it is ugly. -
Mahasi Sayadaw's Revolution
Deep Dive into Vipassana Copyright © 2020 Lion’s Roar Foundation, except where noted. All rights reserved. Lion’s Roar is an independent non-profit whose mission is to communicate Buddhist wisdom and practices in order to benefit people’s lives, and to support the development of Buddhism in the modern world. Projects of Lion’s Roar include Lion’s Roar magazine, Buddhadharma: The Practitioner’s Quarterly, lionsroar.com, and Lion’s Roar Special Editions and Online Learning. Theravada, which means “Way of the Elders,” is the earliest form of institutionalized Buddhism. It’s a style based primarily on talks the Buddha gave during his forty-six years of teaching. These talks were memorized and recited (before the internet, people could still do that) until they were finally written down a few hundred years later in Sri Lanka, where Theravada still dominates – and where there is also superb surf. In the US, Theravada mostly man- ifests through the teaching of Vipassana, particularly its popular meditation technique, mindfulness, the awareness of what is hap- pening now—thoughts, feelings, sensations—without judgment or attachment. Just as surfing is larger than, say, Kelly Slater, Theravada is larger than mindfulness. It’s a vast system of ethics and philoso- phies. That said, the essence of Theravada is using mindfulness to explore the Buddha’s first teaching, the Four Noble Truths, which go something like this: 1. Life is stressful. 2. Our constant desires make it stressful. 3. Freedom is possible. 4. Living compassionately and mindfully is the way to attain this freedom. 3 DEEP DIVE INTO VIPASSANA LIONSROAR.COM INTRODUCTION About those “constant desires”: Theravada practitioners don’t try to stop desire cold turkey. -
Buddhist Pilgrimage
Published for free distribution Buddhist Pilgrimage New Edition 2009 Chan Khoon San ii Sabbadanam dhammadanam jinati. The Gift of Dhamma excels all gifts. The printing of this book for free distribution is sponsored by the generous donations of Dhamma friends and supporters, whose names appear in the donation list at the end of this book. ISBN 983-40876-0-8 © Copyright 2001 Chan Khoon San irst Printing, 2002 " 2000 copies Second Printing 2005 " 2000 copies New Edition 2009 − 7200 copies All commercial rights reserved. Any reproduction in whole or part, in any form, for sale, profit or material gain is strictly prohibited. However, permission to print this book, in its entirety, for free distribution as a gift of Dhamma, is allowed after prior notification to the author. New Cover Design ,nset photo shows the famous Reclining .uddha image at Kusinara. ,ts uni/ue facial e0pression evokes the bliss of peace 1santisukha2 of the final liberation as the .uddha passes into Mahaparinibbana. Set in the background is the 3reat Stupa of Sanchi located near .hopal, an important .uddhist shrine where relics of the Chief 4isciples and the Arahants of the Third .uddhist Council were discovered. Printed in ,uala -um.ur, 0alaysia 1y 5a6u6aya ,ndah Sdn. .hd., 78, 9alan 14E, Ampang New Village, 78000 Selangor 4arul Ehsan, 5alaysia. Tel: 03-42917001, 42917002, a0: 03-42922053 iii DEDICATI2N This book is dedicated to the spiritual advisors who accompanied the pilgrimage groups to ,ndia from 1991 to 2008. Their guidance and patience, in helping to create a better understanding and appreciation of the significance of the pilgrimage in .uddhism, have made those 6ourneys of faith more meaningful and beneficial to all the pilgrims concerned. -
Buddhist Pilgrimage
Published for free distribution Buddhist Pilgrimage ew Edition 2009 Chan Khoon San ii Sabbadanam dhammadanam jinati. The Gift of Dhamma excels all gifts. The printing of this book for free distribution is sponsored by the generous donations of Dhamma friends and supporters, whose names appear in the donation list at the end of this book. ISB: 983-40876-0-8 © Copyright 2001 Chan Khoon San First Printing, 2002 – 2000 copies Second Printing 2005 – 2000 copies New Edition 2009 − 7200 copies All commercial rights reserved. Any reproduction in whole or part, in any form, for sale, profit or material gain is strictly prohibited. However, permission to print this book, in its entirety , for free distribution as a gift of Dhamma , is allowed after prior notification to the author. ew Cover Design Inset photo shows the famous Reclining Buddha image at Kusinara. Its unique facial expression evokes the bliss of peace ( santisukha ) of the final liberation as the Buddha passes into Mahaparinibbana. Set in the background is the Great Stupa of Sanchi located near Bhopal, an important Buddhist shrine where relics of the Chief Disciples and the Arahants of the Third Buddhist Council were discovered. Printed in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia by: Majujaya Indah Sdn. Bhd., 68, Jalan 14E, Ampang New Village, 68000 Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia. Tel: 03-42916001, 42916002, Fax: 03-42922053 iii DEDICATIO This book is dedicated to the spiritual advisors who accompanied the pilgrimage groups to India from 1991 to 2008. Their guidance and patience, in helping to create a better understanding and appreciation of the significance of the pilgrimage in Buddhism, have made those journeys of faith more meaningful and beneficial to all the pilgrims concerned. -
A Beginner's Guide to Meditation
ABOUT THE BOOK As countless meditators have learned firsthand, meditation practice can positively transform the way we see and experience our lives. This practical, accessible guide to the fundamentals of Buddhist meditation introduces you to the practice, explains how it is approached in the main schools of Buddhism, and offers advice and inspiration from Buddhism’s most renowned and effective meditation teachers, including Pema Chödrön, Thich Nhat Hanh, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, Sharon Salzberg, Norman Fischer, Ajahn Chah, Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, Shunryu Suzuki Roshi, Sylvia Boorstein, Noah Levine, Judy Lief, and many others. Topics include how to build excitement and energy to start a meditation routine and keep it going, setting up a meditation space, working with and through boredom, what to look for when seeking others to meditate with, how to know when it’s time to try doing a formal meditation retreat, how to bring the practice “off the cushion” with walking meditation and other practices, and much more. ROD MEADE SPERRY is an editor and writer for the Shambhala Sun magazine. Sign up to receive news and special offers from Shambhala Publications. Or visit us online to sign up at shambhala.com/eshambhala. A BEGINNER’S GUIDE TO Meditation Practical Advice and Inspiration from Contemporary Buddhist Teachers Edited by Rod Meade Sperry and the Editors of the Shambhala Sun SHAMBHALA Boston & London 2014 Shambhala Publications, Inc. Horticultural Hall 300 Massachusetts Avenue Boston, Massachusetts 02115 www.shambhala.com © 2014 by Shambhala Sun Cover art: André Slob Cover design: Liza Matthews All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. -
INSIGHT NEWSLETTER PAID Insight Meditation Society Permit No.2 1230 Pleasant St
INSIGHT NEWSLETTER FALL WINTER 2006/2007 IMS Schedules: Practicing with Vedana: The Retreat Center 2007 The Forest Refuge 2007 The 2nd Foundation of Mindfulness An Interview with Christina Feldman Teacher Interview In 1971, Christina Feldman began Buddhist meditation practice in northern India. She was 17 at the time, and had left her native Canada to travel and explore new IMS News horizons. Since then she has played a key role in bringing the Buddha’s teachings and Developments to the West, offering retreats at IMS and co-founding Gaia House in Devon, England. Married with two adult children, she introduced the Family Retreat at IMS in 1982, and the Women’s Retreat in 1984 – both popular mainstays of BCBS 2006/2007 our annual course calendar. Course Schedule Outline Christina, what are the On his journey towards enlightenment, Buddha’s ‘Four Foundations we know that these ascetic practices of Mindfulness’? didn’t work; they did not bring about the freedom from suffering that he First, it’s helpful to describe the historical sought. One of the turning points of context of the Buddha’s teachings. his awakening was the understanding Siddhartha Gautama - the Buddha - that the very aspects of life he was came from a society rooted in the belief trying to overcome actually held the that life was an obstacle to overcome. key to liberation. He then turned The body, the mind and human rela- towards his body, his mind, his tionships were all to be transcended. feelings and towards everything So, once he started his spiritual search, that arose in his consciousness, it was natural for him to become an seeing them as the ground for his ascetic – he left his family and spent awakening. -
A Psychological Analysis of Physical and Mental Pain in Buddhism Ashin
A Psychological Analysis of Physical and Mental Pain in Buddhism Ashin Sumanacara1 Mahidol University, Thailand. Pain is a natural part of life and all of us. Ordinary people are inflicted with physical or mental pain. In this paper, firstly we will analyse the concept of physical and mental pain according to the Pali Nikāyas. Next we will discuss the causes of physical and mental pain, and investigate the unwholesome roots: greed (lobha), hatred (dosa) and delusion (moha), and their negative roles in causing physical and mental pain. Then we will highlight the Buddhist path to overcoming physical and mental pain. Finally we will discuss mindfulness and the therapeutic relationship. Mindfulness, as it is understood and applied in Buddhism, is a richer theory than thus far understood and applied in Western psychotherapy. Within Buddhism the development of mindfulness must be understood to be interrelated with the maturity of morality (sīla), concentration (samādhi) and wisdom (paññā). A Word about Buddhism Buddhism, a spiritual movement, arose from the prevalent intellectual, political and cultural milieu of Indian society in the 6th century BCE and has been an influential cultural force in Asia for more than 2550 years. In recent decades, it has gained acceptance in the West, largely due to its solution of mental pain of human beings through mindfulness meditation. The core teachings of the Buddha are contained in the Four Noble Truths, which are as follows: (1) Dukkha: life is characterized by pain; (2) Samudaya: the cause of pain which is craving (taṇhā); (3) Nirodha: pain can be ended by the cessation of craving; and (4) Magga: there is a way to achieve the cessation of pain, which is the Noble Eightfold Path (ariya-aṭṭhangika-magga). -
Virtues Without Rules: Ethics in the Insight Meditation Movement Gil Fronsdal
Virtues without Rules: Ethics in the Insight Meditation Movement Gil Fronsdal INTRODUCTION Observers have commented that for Buddhism to take firm hold in the West it needs to develop a well- articulated ethic. This chapter is a study of how Buddhist ethics is taught within one rapidly growing movement of Western Buddhism: what I will be calling the Insight Meditation movement. While the movement has so far published no overview of its ethics, enough material is now available for us to discern some general points. Among Buddhist movements in the West, the Insight Meditation movement is unique in that it is not simply a transplant of an Asian Buddhist tradition. Rather, it can be seen as a new tradition taking shape in the West around particular meditative practices of vipassanā, often translated as “insight meditation” or colloquially as “mindfulness practice.” Vipassanā practice is clearly derived from the Theravāda Buddhism of South and Southeast Asia, where it has a central soteriological role. However, in bringing this meditation practice to the West, the founders of the Insight Meditation movement have consciously downplayed (or even jettisoned) many important elements of the Theravāda tradition, including monasticism, rituals, merit-making, and Buddhist cosmology. Without these and other elements, the Insight Meditation movement has been relatively unencumbered in developing itself into a form of Western Buddhism. In doing so, it has retained only a minimal identification with its Theravāda origins. Ethics, morality, and virtue have central roles in the Asian Theravāda tradition. All three of these English terms can be used to translate the Pāli word sīla that appears in the important three-fold division of the Therāvadin Buddhist spiritual path: sīla, samādhi, and paññā (ethics, meditative absorption, and wisdom). -
American Buddhists: Enlightenment and Encounter
CHAPTER FO U R American Buddhists: Enlightenment and Encounter ★ he Buddha’s Birthday is celebrated for weeks on end in Los Angeles. TMore than three hundred Buddhist temples sit in this great city fac- ing the Pacific, and every weekend for most of the month of May the Buddha’s Birthday is observed somewhere, by some group—the Viet- namese at a community college in Orange County, the Japanese at their temples in central Los Angeles, the pan-Buddhist Sangha Council at a Korean temple in downtown L.A. My introduction to the Buddha’s Birthday observance was at Hsi Lai Temple in Hacienda Heights, just east of Los Angeles. It is said to be the largest Buddhist temple in the Western hemisphere, built by Chinese Buddhists hailing originally from Taiwan and advocating a progressive Humanistic Buddhism dedicated to the pos- itive transformation of the world. In an upscale Los Angeles suburb with its malls, doughnut shops, and gas stations, I was about to pull over and ask for directions when the road curved up a hill, and suddenly there it was— an opulent red and gold cluster of sloping tile rooftops like a radiant vision from another world, completely dominating the vista. The ornamental gateway read “International Buddhist Progress Society,” the name under which the temple is incorporated, and I gazed up in amazement. This was in 1991, and I had never seen anything like it in America. The entrance took me first into the Bodhisattva Hall of gilded images and rich lacquerwork, where five of the great bodhisattvas of the Mahayana Buddhist tradition receive the prayers of the faithful. -
Handout: Resource List
Handout: Resource List Websites • Downloadable meditation teachings and instruction from Dharma Seed: www.dharmaseed.org • Meditation instructions, including mindfulness of breath and lovingkindness or compassion meditation: www.lisadalemiller.com • Meditation CDs and tapes developed by Jon Kabat-Zinn for the MBSR program: https://www.mindfulnesscds.com/collections/cds • Teachings, discussions, resources, listings of retreats: www.dharmapunx.com • Links and articles relevant to meditation and recovery: www.buddhistrecovery.org Books • Dharma Punx: A Memoir, by Noah Levine. New York: Harper San Francisco, 2003. • Insight Meditation: The Practice of Freedom, by Joseph Goldstein. Boston: Shambhala, 1993. • The Mindful Path to Self-compassion: Freeing Yourself from Destructive Thoughts and Emotions, by Christopher K. Germer. New York: Guilford Press, 2009 • Mindful Recovery: A Spiritual Path to Healing from Addiction, by Thomas Bien and Beverly Bien. New York: Wiley, 2002. • The Mindful Way through Anxiety: Break Free from Chronic Worry and Reclaim Your Life, by Susan M. Orsillo and Lizabeth Roemer. New York: Guilford Press, 2011. • The Mindful Way through Depression: Freeing Yourself from Chronic Unhappiness, by J. Mark G. Williams, John D. Teasdale, Zindel V. Segal, and Jon Kabat-Zinn. New York: Guilford Press, 2007. • The Mindfulness Solution: Everyday Practices for Everyday Problems, by Ronald D. Siegel. New York: Guilford Press, 2010. • The Miracle of Mindfulness: An Introduction of the Practice of Meditation, by Thich Nhat Hanh. Boston: Beacon Press, 1987. • One Breath at a Time: Buddhism and the Twelve Steps, by Kevin Griffin. Emmaus, PA: Rodale, 2004. • A path with Heart: A Guide through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life, by Jack Kornfield. -
A Buddhist Approach Based on Loving- Kindness: the Solution of the Conflict in Modern World
A BUDDHIST APPROACH BASED ON LOVING- KINDNESS: THE SOLUTION OF THE CONFLICT IN MODERN WORLD Venerable Neminda A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Buddhist Studies) Graduate School Mahachulalongkornrajavidyalaya University C.E. 2019 A Buddhist Approach Based on Loving-kindness: The Solution of the Conflict in Modern World Venerable Neminda A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Buddhist Studies) Graduate School Mahachulalongkornrajavidyalaya University C.E. 2019 (Copyright by Mahachulalongkornrajavidyalaya University) Dissertation Title : A Buddhist Approach Based on Loving-Kindness: The Solution of the Conflict in Modern World Researcher : Venerable Neminda Degree : Doctor of Philosophy (Buddhist Studies) Dissertation Supervisory Committee : Phramaha Hansa Dhammahaso, Assoc. Prof. Dr., Pāḷi VI, B.A. (Philosophy), M.A. (Buddhist Studies), Ph.D. (Buddhist Studies) : Asst. Prof. Dr. Sanu Mahatthanadull, B.A. (Advertising) M.A. (Buddhist Studies), Ph.D. (Buddhist Studies) Date of Graduation : February/ 26/ 2019 Abstract The dissertation is a qualitative research. There are three objectives, namely:- 1) To explore the concept of conflict and its cause found in the Buddhist scriptures, 2) To investigate the concept of loving-kindness for solving the conflicts in suttas and the best practices applied by modern scholars 3) To present a Buddhist approach based on loving-kindness: The solution of the conflict in modern world. This finding shows the concept of conflicts and conflict resolution method in the Buddhist scriptures. The Buddhist resolution is the loving-kindness. These loving- kindness approaches provide the method, and integration theory of the Buddhist teachings, best practice of modern scholar method which is resolution method in the modern world.