This is a Dharma talk by my master, Harada Tangen Roshi. It is on the phrase “kono inochi kagiri nashi” which means roughly “this life is limitless”. Roshi sama (a title meaning ‘venerable teacher’) has used this phrase “this life” in many of not all his Dharma talks. Everything should focused upon this life we are living and none other. It doesn’t mean ‘think of what our goal is – enlightenment’, but often he means it to be this very moment and none other. For if one is living in the past or future one is not doing one’s utmost. This lies the essence of the Buddha’s Teaching.
Category: buddhism
This category is about everything Buddha and Buddhism, which teaches that:
1) everything is marked by impermanence, to believe in any permanence is to suffer, and the the ultimate cause of suffering is the rejection of the non-permanent self.
2) Enlightenment (contentment) can be found through the understanding of the true nature of existence (trilaksana) as stated here, and by living in accordance to such an understanding.
The thing about inconveniences …
… is that it ultimately gives one a better perspective of the world.
Last night I posted on my Facebook Wall about the beauty of the stars in a clear sky. And this morning I continued the story with an update about how clear the morning night sky was again. This prompted a friend of mine to comment how she wished she had the luxury of looking at the stars like me.
But what she and probably everyone else don’t realize was that I wasn’t actually delibrately going outside to look at the night sky but rather I was doing the mundane task of putting in the laundry into the washing machine in our creaky old country outhouse. I do it every night before I sleep at nine (put on a six-hour-later timer so that we use the off peak electricity, of course), collect and hang it up just after five in the morning. So all I had done was look up at the night sky as I made the trip there and back.
It isn’t the romantic country lifestyle as everyone seems to think. That is what is so great about darkness. They are like “alcohol goggles” (that is, being drunk): you can forget about reality and enjoy the sheer beauty of the dark clear night sky. But it all comes crashing back to earth when you enter your artificially lit home and see yourself in your run down PJs in the mirror.
As I said it isn’t a romantic lifestyle but it is an ideal one, one that makes me happy and feel closer to nature. And I wouldn’t give it up for the world. At least that is what I feel at the moment. Because if it wasn’t for this lack of convenience of not having space for a washine machine in our house I wouldn’t have seen that beautiful sky, or notice the natural rhythm – night after night – of the world that is beyond the psychological and physical walls which surround me.
Vietnam uses monks to take territory
This is why I hate politics.
Vietnam has decided to send monks to the Spratly Islands to lay claim to the Islands as their territory. But why not just send civilians? And I don’t think much of monks who would agree to go over probably knowing full well why their task is. It isn’t Buddhism and Buddhism has nothing to do with this.
It is a human shield in not so much as a disguise. Atrocious.
A place where Buddhism and alcohol mix?
Having started out Buddhism from Zen Buddhism (and now with a bit of Theravada) I cannot fathom what drives some monks to think they can run a bar and still think they can still call themselves Buddhist monks. It wasn’t mentioned which sect these monks belong to but my guess is that they are from the Jodo Shin sect.
I am not against Jodo Shin sect at all but rather misinterpretations by people of what its original founders had intended. Like all societies and their religions there will be radical offshoots. Is it okay to start a prostitution house just because you have a sympathetic ear?
A line has to be drawn somewhere and it has to be drawn with common sense even though common sense can be problematic at times.
The link between the environment and war
Did you know that 40% of world’s civil or internal wars in the last half century have been fought over for natural resources?
Today is International Day for Preventing the Exploitation of the Environment in War and Armed Conflict. We should remember the (illogical) reasons why we are fighting in the first place. Then, may be, we will put down our weapons and make peace instead.
Mornings are the best time to meditate
I used to meditate at night because it was the only time I could do it … or at least that was the excuse I gave myself. Actually while I was at Bukkokuji Temple in Obama, Fukui the routine was to meditate once in the morning (twice during winter) and three times at night. So my belief for a long time was that night meditation is the best.
But this is simply not true.
For lay people a morning session is usually the best because it is the time when we have least to do, less rushed by life. It is also quiet as everyone is still asleep and therefore one can concentrate better. One is also fresh from rest.
At the Temple as monks one can concentrate because that is the life monks have chosen, to devote their lives to save all others. Lay people do not have this “luxury”.
Very democratic but not very Buddhist – cigarettes in Bhutan
Buddhism has never been a religion (is it a religion?) about forcing someone to do things they do not want to do.
The restrictions of sales and use of cigarettes in Bhutan with its five year jail sentence is not only excessive it is counterproductive. The forming of a black market is an indication of how liberalism can go wrong. Moving to a democracy does not mean a better life. It is simply different. And different does not mean better though ‘better’ is what advocates of liberalism and democracy want you to believe.
Politics and government are not easy and lighthearted tasks. I still wish Bhutan good luck. But I also believe their move to democratic rule was wrong. Let’s just hope GNH will not turn into GNU (Gross National Unhappiness).
Trilakshana – the marks of existence in Buddhism
If ever there were important discoveries they are these.
The Buddha said there are three marks of existence – impermanance, suffering and no-self. Everything (yes, everything) in the world is impermanent. There are no exceptions to this. We suffer because we think there is something permanent. It doesn’t matter what that thing is, if one thinks it is permanent then we suffer the consequences for that belief. More often than not the thing we believe most to be permanent is the self. And The Buddha unequivocally states even this is impermanent.
Know that there is no self would end suffering which in turn leads to the understanding of impermanence.
But coming to this understanding is harder than it sounds. It usually takes years of training. When you have achieved this, though, rest assured you will be enlightened. Good to know, isn’t it.
David Suzuki – the DVD
If you haven’t heard of David Suzuki, you have now.
A DVD about this Japanese-Canadian environmentalist, David Suzuki, has been just released.
On Heidemarie Schwermer and Tiger Woods – “Money distracts us from what’s important.”
“Money distracts us from what’s important.” Heidemarie Schwermer
According to this article she has been living without money for 15 years, living purely on bartering or by trading work for the things she needs. I have also said this – that money causes many of our problems – for sometime now, that a society driven by money doesn’t work.
So is it possible to live with money and still remember what is important?
I think it is but very difficult. It takes training, much like Tiger Woods and how he was trained by his father to concentrate with a lot of background noise (crowd noise) during golf. Speaking of Tiger Woods I feel sorry for him because not only are his distractions external but they are now internal as well. I wish him luck to find peace within himself and with-out with those whom he had hurt. People make mistakes. So forgiveness is important. And on his part sincerity of repentence is his work.
In some ways he was distracted by money and the trappings that came with it. He had forgetten the things which are important. Most of us are more fortunate to have less money and fame. At least I feel it is fortuitous to be neither too rich nor too poor. Call it the Middle Way. Call it the Goldilocks Zone. Whatever the name this idea is not new, it has only been ignored or belittled.
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